News
Monday, August 27, 2012
‘Silent majority responsible for democracy’s failure’* Report on failure of democracy says 55pc of those eligible don’t vote
* Appeals to registered voters to vote to save country
* Proposes new electoral system to reform governance
Staff Report
LAHORE: Over 55 percent of the eligible voters in the country, who didn’t cast vote in past elections, are responsible for failure of democracy in Pakistan and this silent majority must wake up and exercise their right to vote out political black sheep, said experts of Pakistan Visionary Forum (PVF) on Sunday.
While making public the results of a focus group discussion on the causes of failure of democratic system in Pakistan, the forum appealed to every registered voter to vote in all the future elections to save Pakistan, warning that otherwise the people should be ready to face much worse situation in the country in the shape of economic crisis, lawlessness, corruption, injustice, unemployment, bad governance, poverty, insecurity, water and power shortage, foreign interventions and pressures, chaos, etc.
The forum has already proposed a new electoral system in a report containing recommendations to reform and improve the system of governance in the country.
PVF Secretary General Muhammad Azeem said that their committee had gathered opinions from their electoral system committee head Dr Muhammad Sadiq, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Qayyum Nizami, former National Assembly speaker Fakhar Imam, former intelligence chief Lt Gen Ziauddin, former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) information secretary Zubair Sheikh and Abdul Majeed Khan.
The new electoral system, he said, was proposed keeping in view the weaknesses of the present electoral system, including low voter turnout, dictation by smaller regional parties to the ruling party as a coalition partner, non-representation of 60 to 65 percent non-voting educated class of society, vested interests of smaller parties, defensive position of larger provinces as compared to the smaller provinces on national policy making front and domination of regionalism instead of nationalism.
The report recommended that 50 percent of national and provincial assembly seats should be filled under the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) system while the remaining 50 percent on the basis of Proportional Representation (PR) system. For the FPTP purpose, all voters would be required to exercise their second vote for the non-changeable fixed lists of candidates submitted in advance by various political parties. The party lists must include educated men or women of integrity belonging to segments of lower and middleclass of society or technocrats. Every political party at national level should be required to obtain minimum five percent of the total votes cast and three percent in case of provincial elections.
Parties must give tickets to patriotic Pakistani citizens who are concerned with the safety and solidarity of the country, the PVF secretary general said. Political parties getting more than five percent of total votes in the National Assembly elections should be entitled to seats against PR system, he said, adding that recommendations had been framed with the objective of encouraging reconciliation and discouraging polarisation in turbulent Pakistani society.
Regarding the conduct of political parties, the report proposed evolvement of high technology to improve efficiency of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to address that issue.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk