The election and a few questions

There are no two opinions in anyone's mind that there is no alternative to an election, and that the election must be free, fair and credible in a democratic dispensation. Needless to say, the election is governed by two very important factors that cannot be made a short shrift of. A free and fair election is predicated on a credible voter list while the paucity of time is a major constraining factor.

Let's take the voter list first. Regrettably, in spite of the three attempts that have been made so far to update it, twice by the now-on-leave CEC, Justice Aziz, and the latest exercise to remove the flaws, conducted over the last ten days, we are where we were at the beginning of the year. There are far too many questions that render the current voter list less than credible. The people have no idea about the recent update. To say the least it was a most haphazard affair, and as per report the enumerators did not go from house to house in most cases as they were obligated to do. We would like to know also as to what has been done to include the names of the genuine voters who have been left out and what has been done to delete names of about 13 million or so duplicate/false or extra, call what you may, voters? Under these circumstances can one really inspire a person to go for election?

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As for the paucity of time the body that should be held responsible for wasting all these days is the caretaker government led by the chief adviser-cum-president. We are sorry to say that it was his procrastination that is responsible for the paucity of time. He appointed two new election commissioners one of whom was an active member of a major political party. It was his foot dragging and U-turn on issues that were all but resolved, his dilly-dallying, going one step forward only to retrace two, have brought us to a situation where we are faced with a flawed voter list and not enough time to rectify it.

These are questions that need to be answered before the people can be convinced that the election that they are so eagerly waiting to participate in will be credible.