Pakistan’s politics is infested with corrupt MNAs and MPAs. A majority of these people cannot pass through the strainer of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution of Pakistan.
These Articles demand that those who enter the assemblies should be of good character, follow Islamic injunctions and are righteous, honest and ameen (trustworthy).
As these qualities are non-existent in the existing crop of the parliamentarians, they aren’t worthy of sitting in the assemblies. It’s therefore necessary that electoral reforms are conducted before the elections take place.
Once, these reforms are instituted, one can expect good people in Pakistani politics who would lead the country towards progress.
It’s also felt that the Election Commission should be given more powers. The members of this commission should also pass through the filter of the above-mentioned articles.
The commission should be allocated one month’s period to scrutinise the record of all prospective parliamentarians. All those candidates who haven’t paid their taxes and are loan defaulters or possess fake degrees would automatically be barred from contesting the elections.
Some people argue that the Chief Election Commissioner, though, an upright and honest person, is too old to hold this position and wouldn’t be able to withstand the stress of the elections.
My reply to them is that Quaid-i-Azam was also a fragile person but had nerves of steel. He was successful in carving out a separate homeland for Muslims of India.
AIR CDRE (R) AZFAR A KHAN Rawalpindi
