EVERY VOTE COUNTS

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/30/every-vote-counts/

• ECP can, if it tries, succeed in improving voting practice

“For the purpose of each national general election to the State Parliament (National Assembly), and to a Provincial Legislature, an Election Commission shall be constituted in accordance with Article 239G. It shall be the duty of the Election Commission constituted in relation to an election to organise and conduct the election and to make such arrangements as are necessary to ensure that the election is conducted honestly, justly, fairly and in accordance with law, and that corrupt practices are guarded against.”

Article 218 – 219: Election Commissions; Part VIII, Chapter:1 Chief Election Commissioner,

Source: The Constitution of Pakistan

By law, all citizens above a certain age have the right to vote.

To conduct an election justly and fairly means much more the conventional requirement to ensure that ballot boxes are sealed, that votes are counted in accordance with the rules and no mishandling takes place.

There is another requirement which is just as important. It is to ensure that everyone has equal access to the voting booth, that all citizens understand the voting process and are allowed – by law – to take time off to get to the venue. If this is not done, elections are only theoretically for everyone, in actual fact many persons are unable to cast a vote. That is how it has been in these elections.

Whether or not Pakistan’s elections 2018 were fair in the conventional sense is being hotly disputed. But that they were not fair as far as that second requirement mentioned above is concerned, is indisputable, because many people were unable to vote.

The turnout of women was one of the success stories this election. Even where female voter turnout has traditionally been very low, women voted in greater numbers than before because the ECP warned it would take action if women were prevented from voting. As reported in the editorial of a national daily, in a piece of legislation pushed by female legislators the ECP was given the power to declare results void in places with a less than 10 percent turnout, and it did cancel the result of a poll in Lower Dir because of such a low female voter turnout. In such places, men ‘allowed’ and even made it easier for women to vote so that their votes would not be rejected.

It shows that the ECP can, if it tries, succeed in improving voting practice. Obviously however, the will to try was missing. And just as equally, it was difficult to focus on what needed to be done with all the confusion, meddling, and disorganization that surrounded the event.

Voters need time off to vote, and the process needs to be facilitated taking into account that voters are often at work – ideally polling should take place on a weekend – and that polling stations are inaccessible for various reasons in many cases.

According to HRAsia, for example, Malaysia’s Election Offences Act 1954 makes it compulsory for employers to give employees time off to vote in the country’s general elections, without pay deduction or penalty.

To vote took more than an hour for me, the process was so slow. These women had been there before me, and were still there by the time I left

In the UK, polling starts at 7am and ends at 10pm at night. This, although employers are not required by law to give workers time off, makes it possible for almost everyone to vote before or after they start work.

To make it possible for as many people as possible to vote the US has a system of absentee votes which allows citizens who are disabled or not in the country to vote by mail, fax or email, depending on the case. In some American States although not in all, even those who are simply unwilling to go to the polling station can vote this way.

Pakistan has not made it easy for its electorate to cast their vote. Many people did not vote because they were overseas at the time and were not allowed to vote.

Even greater numbers of voters were registered in some other village or city, not where they were currently living or working, and they were unable to leave work to get to the polls physically, and their employers would have docked their pay if they took time off anyway. It is possible for such people to cast a postal ballot, yet many of these people, maids, shopkeepers, labourers, who were in Lahore for example from neighbouring small places, did not vote because they were unaware that they could cast their vote this way. Even if they knew, many of them were unaware that the last date for submitting an application using a prescribed application for a postal ballot was July 10, and they missed the deadline.

At the polling station we went to, it was as the foreign election observers said, that conditions were not good. There were insufficient chairs for the elderly, and few fans. A woman next to me shrouded from head to foot in black nylon fabric was sweating from every inch of visible skin. And yet to their great credit, people came.

Elsewhere, several people I spoke to were unable to vote because they were registered elsewhere and did not know they could vote by mail, as mentioned above.

It is not enough to inform voters on television and in newspapers that they must send an SMS with their ID number to so and so number to obtaining voting information. Such information makes no sense to many people, who do not know how to read and write anyway. Such persons made it to a polling station only to find an hour later – which is at least how long it took to unearth their polling details, often longer – that they were at the wrong station, or lining up outside the wrong room. The nylon lady in black I mentioned earlier was one such person. With her was an elderly lady who seemed about ninety. To vote took more than an hour for me, the process was so slow. These women had been there before me, and were still there by the time I left. They would gladly have been allowed ahead in the queue by all the women present, only they were waiting for their ‘parchis’ all this time with the relevant information which would have enabled them to make it to the right room and queue up outside it all over again.

We forget that Pakistan’s population is predominantly uneducated, and many of us ignore that fact. That many of its people live in areas where there is no electricity, that they are so sunk in the struggle to survive means that information must be taken to them, and brought quite determinedly to their attention.

This job belongs to the ECP, the Election Commission of Pakistan. It all boils down to the priorities.

  

by Taboola 

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WHO KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING ANYMORE?

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/24/who-knows-what-is-happening-anymore/

• Why would anyone wish to be the prime minister of Pakistan?

On the eve of elections that are as sordid as these — it is best to keep the similes to oneself in the current atmosphere – some depressing questions must occur to most people: Why would anyone wish to be the prime minister of Pakistan? Why put yourself in that position when it is faced with such an uphill task? Is being preceded by sirens and accompanied by most of the constabulary of the county of such crucial importance to anyone’s ego? It seems to be, even though most of the PMs of this country have been humiliated, and either dismissed, disqualified, assassinated, or in ZA Bhutto’s case, imprisoned and hung.

There’s only over half the males and less than half the females literate in Pakistan, a huge number in a massive population growing further out of hand. Most of these people, if they vote, will barely know how to hold a pen when casting their ballot. There’s the health of our future generation at risk since more than 31pc of the children under five are underweight, and the incidence of infant death at birth is terribly high. Why put yourself in a position where you must try to bring down the country’s currently major risk of disease, food and waterborne disease: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, typhoid, of dengue, malaria and rabies? Where you must do something for the more than 130,000 persons now living with HIV/AIDS, about sanitation which is currently beyond mention awful, unavailable, not understood, about clean drinking water which is almost never available, about health facilities that are the pits? Why not simply work at a lesser position, in which you can make money hand over fist and then spend it on all the nihari your heart desires, or on halvas, donuts or molten lava cakes?

Unless of course the elected person is able to ignore all that must be done, quite happily, and concentrate on the nihari, halvas, donuts or molten lava cakes so abundantly available in this land of the underfed. It’s what has happened these past seventy years, its likely to be what keeps happening, regardless of who succeeds in pulling off their game, even if the biggest landlord in the country manages to incarcerate all the irritants from the one party and put its own stooge on the stage. Will that stooge turn out to be not a stooge after all – which means more tensions all around – because really, the stooge cannot watch his tongue and has strange ‘religious’ notions that might lead to unwelcome consequences? Will the wily fox grin his way onto the stage once again? Will women be pushed further back into their homes and hirsute males carry sticks in the streets? Will some persons not counted among the mainstream be required to display the equivalent of the star of David on their chests by law and the rest burnt or beaten to death? Will this poor defeated nation ever, ever get a leader who cares about the people in addition to himself, and visualise the people as human rather than ATM machines?

Will the CJ ever learn to – er – rest his case?

Politics is inherently deceptive, but it need not be quite as two-faced as it is now, nor as foggy as to who stands to gain. For the first time one votes not for the better man – there isn’t one, unless you speak of a young human rights activist

Politics is inherently deceptive, but it need not be quite as two-faced as it is now, nor as foggy as to who stands to gain. For the first time one votes not for the better man – there isn’t one, unless you speak of a young human rights activist, hum sub may say sirf aik, a lawyer and an independent candidate. Instead we vote for those who have been unfairly targeted. It’s a roundabout way of thumbing your nose at the perpetrators of this confusion, of telling them to git, to mind the peripheries as they are supposed to be doing.

Is it the Garden greeting the Spring,

Or the Prison opening its doors?

Listen –

From which direction arises the song of glee?

Faiz Ahmad Faiz: translated by Sain Sucha

Who knows what awaits this country? Does anyone know what is happening anymore?

The suspense between killers and weapons as they gamble:

Who will die and whose turn is next?

That bet has now been placed on me

So bring the order for my execution

I must see with whose seals the margins are stamped

Recognise the signatures on the scroll

Faiz Ahmad Faiz

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/17/crime-and-punishment-2/

With Maryam Nawaz and her father in jail, and Captain Safdar already there, it remains to be seen how the former first family handles surroundings that are rather less opulent than what they are used to. A report a few days ago mentioned that the Sharifs would need to apply for Better Class jail facilities if they wish to have them. The question is: should any person in prison be allowed to have better facilities than another?

This is not about the Sharifs per se, or what one thinks of their priorities. It is about what constitutes justice. The Sharifs are simply referred to here because they happen to be uppermost in our minds at present.

There is not enough space in this column, nor are we all qualified to write at length about justice, but common sense alone provides some answers. And one of those answers begs the question: what is a crime?

According to one definition, ‘a crime is any harmful act or omission against the public which the state wishes to prevent, and which upon conviction is punishable by fine, imprisonment, and/or death.’

Prison is, as a website for a ‘private prison’ in the US (more about that later) says, a “highly disruptive experience.” That is a gem of an understatement. Most prisoners, not just the female ones, face the risk of violence, including sexual violence. Shared, overcrowded facilities mean varying levels of hygiene, and there is boredom and isolation for those dependent on television and newspapers. If the punishment is to be just, it must apply equally to all prisoners regardless of their bank account. A prisoner who can buy his way into comfort over and above the very public he has offended against is like a prisoner buying out the judge.

The purpose of jail is for the security of society, to prevent the criminal from being able to commit another crime, as much a deterrent for would-be criminals, and a place of reformation

If the punishment is to fit the crime rather than the criminal’s status and situation in society, you would expect the law to reflect that.

Yet, a notification from the Home Department, Government of Punjab, says that a prisoner may apply for better facilities if he/she is a casual not a professional offender, and owns around 50 acres of irrigated land or comparable assets that can be substantiated by information provided to the tax authorities, in other words it is reflected in their tax returns.

That indicates (apart from the casual offender bit), that only the rich may obtain better facilities in jail.

For those interested, the US presents some flamboyant instances of prisoners upgrading to better facilities, even those prisoners imprisoned for more serious crimes.

In Los Angeles County Jail, a man convicted of sexual battery was able to “avoid county jail entirely. He did his time in Seal Beach’s small city jail, with amenities that included flat-screen TVs, a computer room and new beds. He served six months, at a cost of $18,250, according to jail records.”

Such ‘pay to stay’ facilities are the ‘private’ jails mentioned above. It seems in a recent period of five years, more than 3,500 people, some of them convicted of serious crimes, made use of that programme in the US. The website of one of those jails promotes it as a place where criminals can serve their time in a “less intimidating environment.”

Special privileges, where allowed, are hardly conducive to making inmates regret their crime, since, as in the outside world, in jail they still have the pleasure of feeling superior to the very public they have presumably offended against.

All prisoners are entitled to the same basic humane conditions, which is the case in societies where jail is perceived as an opportunity for both reform and punishment. But this is definitely not how it is in Pakistan.

In Britain, there appears to be greater homogeneity, although there are some new prisons coming up that provide much the same kind of facilities as in those US prisons, the difference being that in Britain the facilities are free. Oh, and they have en suite bathrooms in Britain where that is a luxury indeed for the great bulk of the population. One man, convicted for repeatedly stabbing his wife and now imprisoned in one of these ‘fancy’ facilities actually boasted that he was better off in prison.

It is unlikely that the Sharifs will be able to say that. There are no gilded lions in prison, although they may be able to buy biryani till the cows come home.

But there’s more. The notification from Punjab’s Home Department mentioned earlier also specifies that only a person who holds a graduate degree can apply for better facilities in jail.

What on earth does an academic degree have to do with the matter? Under that law, had he committed a crime for which he could be imprisoned, our beloved Abdul Sattar Edhi who possessed neither a birth certificate nor a degree (except honorary ones) would not be eligible for better facilities. That he would not have applied for special facilities for himself is another matter altogether.

Crime and punishment in Pakistan require more consideration.

The purpose of jail is for the security of society, to prevent the criminal from being able to commit another crime, as much a deterrent for would-be criminals, and a place of reformation – so that inmates may regret their actions and not engage in crime again. And since there is also a proven connection between poverty and crime, with notable exceptions, for those without skills training programmes help to break that connection.

To allow persons to buy their way to comfort in jail is to give them an unfair advantage, since other prisoners do time under worse conditions. This is unfair, unjust and not even-handed. Yet this unfair advantage in Pakistan is being allowed and perpetuated by the state, and its laws. So what then if people take advantage of privilege outside jail?

KALABAGH OR THE PILL?

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/12/kalabagh-or-the-pill/

Terrorism and money laundering are grave issues for Pakistan, but so are shortage of water, low literacy levels, and poor government education, the only education that the masses can afford. Yet the biggest problem of all, which impacts all these issues, even terrorism, is the phenomenal growth of the country’s population.
The size of an average household in Pakistan as of last year was 6.45 persons. That means almost seven persons to feed, clothe and keep in health; and if the family includes an elderly grandparent, around four to educate. Given that this is a third world country with low incomes, that is not good news. The first thing any new government must pay attention to therefore is controlling the population, since such a burgeoning population is a much worse threat than any neighbouring country.
Other countries have tried controlling their population by enforcing policies to lower it, foremost among them China with its one child policy, which three years ago became the two child policy. But the mind boggles at the idea of such a policy being implemented in Pakistan. Pakistan requires a firm hand, but there are factors to be taken in mind here which did not exist in Mao’s China.
One of those factors is the presence of extreme right-wing religious groups. Following this tampered election, the religious right has been unleashed onto an uneducated public with permission to stand for election. That segment of society is henceforth likely to be stronger than ever, although one would be extremely grateful to be proved wrong. That is the main segment opposed to population control, women’s welfare, and education. Only a concerted effort and meticulous planning can counter it, not a strong point with any of the governments in this country.
Other than right wing ignorance and bias, and the government’s lack of planning, there are other factors against population control.
Effective population control costs money. Also, aside from a lack of general education, there is a lack of knowledge specifically about what population control involves. There is also the cultural bias against living with a married daughter, which makes it the major reason why people hang out for a son, even at the risk of producing an entire cricket team until a male child arrives on the scene. Parents fear the future and what will happen to them if they do not rear a sufficient number of children to look after them in their old age. Yet in Pakistan, there is the distinct possibility that even if one has several children, only a few might survive the infant and child mortality rate in this country. It is a valid fear in a society that lacks facilities to support the elderly, where even if such facilities existed, most people would not be able to afford them.

The billions that would go towards the Kalabagh dam should be diverted towards family planning. It would pay for contraception, and better facilities for the aged who have no family to take them in

According to UNICEF, Pakistan has the worst infant mortality rate in the world. “The differences are stark,” the report in one of the newspapers says. “A baby born in Pakistan — the country with the worst newborn mortality rate — faced a one in 22 chance of death, while a newborn in Japan had only a one in 1,111 risk of dying.” The UNICEF report also says that more than 80pc of those deaths can be prevented.
Which means that for the average Pakistani couple, after producing that entire cricket team, there is a great and definite risk of just the captain surviving at the end of the day. A dire prospect indeed.
There is not much attention being paid to the issue of population control, although most people agree that something must be done. What that ‘something’ is, and how it is to be paid for is still up in the air.
Instead of population control, the issue being more generally discussed is how to ensure water for the coming years, especially with the prospect of a much larger population in the coming years. The idea of constructing dams is popular, although there are some very valid arguments being offered by the other side.
Think about it.
Building the Kalabagh dam is likely to cost billions of rupees. There will also be the additional billions in cost in damages to the more than million people displaced as a result. It is doubtful if these people will ever be adequately recompensed and resettled. In Lahore, to give a small example, with all the construction currently taking place in DHA, cards and bouquets were sent to the residences inconvenienced along the route but there was no provision for the commercial sector that lost business in the process.
Kalabagh will cause damage to the environment. Thousands of acres of agricultural land will come under water. Wetlands and agricultural land lower south are likely to be adversely affected.
So, although effective population control costs money, it would cost less than building a massive dam and have almost no adverse effects. It if works, and the population growth is controlled as a result there is the prospect of a smaller population requiring less water.
Besides, there are also other ways of obtaining and storing water, an issue which should by no means be ignored. Dealing with the matter should include a concerted drive to change agricultural practice so that crops requiring less water are planted. Currently Pakistan relies heavily on sugar cane and rice, two crops that need a lot of water.
The billions that would go towards the Kalabagh dam should be diverted towards family planning. It would pay for contraception, and better facilities for the aged who have no family to take them in. The media too can play a huge role in this, as it has shown itself capable of doing during these elections, by changing the current mindset that is wary of contraception, and ignorant about what it involves.
At the end of the day though, none of this can take place unless the powers that be are less corrupt than they have hitherto been, unless they are better organised and unless they plan with the best interests of the nation rather than themselves in mind.

TIME BANKING

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/03/time-banking/

Banking, otherwise a dry subject, has spawned some interesting ideas, such as micro finance, a system of loans to the less wealthy who would not normally be able to access the facility. The concept has been around for a while, predominantly in Germany, but modern microfinance was pioneered by Muhammad Yunus the founder of Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank. It runs counter to what Robert Frost said that banks lend you umbrellas in fair weather and ask for them back when it rains.

There is also the controversial cryptocurrency such as bitcoins, a digital currency which few people understand, myself included.

And then there is the concept of time banks, which is worth understanding.

Time banking, also known as time trade is based on five basic values as defined by wiki: 1) Everyone is an asset 2) Some work is beyond monetary price 3) Reciprocity in helping 4) Social networks are necessary 5) A respect for all human beings.

The idea of time banking has been around for a couple of centuries, but in modern times, time banks exist in at least 34 countries, predominantly in countries such as Japan, the US and the UK. Australia has the largest single timebank with well over 6,000 members.

There are opportunities in this class for fixing roofs and mending taps on a reciprocal basis, for fixing motorbikes and stitching clothes. And an important currency here is literacy

The currency used by bank members is skill, and since every person has some skill, every person has assets and something to offer. These skills, when used for the purpose of time banking are timed, and can then be exchanged for the appropriate skill that someone else has banked in a similar way. The exchange is not necessarily made with the same person or for the same skill.

So, for example, if you put in an hour fixing someone’s door, you ‘earn’ an hour of help in return. Someday, when you need about an hour’s work in your garden, someone who lives around your area, who is a time banker and knows gardening puts in that hour for you, and the cycle goes on. It is community cooperation with a difference, the idea of helping someone in the expectation of a return – not necessarily from that person – but from whoever else, at some other time.

Members come from all walks of life, but often they tend to be older people, who bank their donations for when they need help in return, since in the west older people tend to live independently.

In Pakistan, the elderly live mostly with family, but there are exceptions.

There are the elderly who have no family to live with.

And, there are the elderly who despite possessing family, even family that is happy to look after its elderly members, would rather live independently while they can, for various reasons. Many people for example have children living overseas, and they do not wish to live overseas themselves. Many people are happier living in their own home, and would prefer to carry on doing so. And that number is growing.

There are issues with adapting this system to Pakistan. In a poor country, with the majority of its population uneducated, people are less able to understand concepts, which is what this is. There is also the fact that the majority is poor. That segment of society, when it works, would rather be paid in cash. There is a kind of time banking which earns actual currency, but that is limited, and does not seem usable for a poor third world country, but who knows what can be achieved with some ingenuity?

Another issue associated with Pakistan and its well-to-do segment of society is that it is able to pay for help. And in fact if it did not, it would have adverse effects on the economy.

That leaves the middle class, a segment of society that is literate (quite often), that needs to regulate its expenses, and which – given careful explanation – would grasp the concept of time banking.

There are opportunities in this class for fixing roofs and mending taps on a reciprocal basis, for fixing motorbikes and stitching clothes. And an important currency here is literacy.

If I have a child that needs to be taught to read, but I cannot send that child to school because he or she works, or even if he goes to school but the teaching is abysmal as it often is, I can stitch a teacher’s clothes, and she can give some coaching to my child.

Given Pakistan’s problems which almost all of them are grounded in a lack of education, anything that can be done to improve the situation would be welcome. This is one way of doing it, and it sounds like a good way.