An impractical promise to nine million overseas Pakistanis
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The Pakistan federal government has just unveiled a new bill seeking to amend its election laws. The principal change being sought is allowing non-resident Pakistanis with dual nationalities to both vote for representatives for national parliament and to contest elections themselves.
The country has long debated the merits and de-merits of allowing its nearly nine million non-resident Pakistanis, including around 4.5 million in the Gulf region, to both vote in national elections and run for parliament. But there has never been a serious attempt to materialize this until now.
Assuming the law passes muster in parliament-- itself a big ‘if’ considering the polarized polity – the plan is to seek voting on the bill within November. The bill becoming law will be a game-changer, redrawing Pakistan’s political and electoral landscapes in fundamental ways.
To start with, even if a third of overseas Pakistanis register to be voters, this will add a whopping 3 million people to the country’s voter base. Pakistan has just updated its electoral rolls – its list of voters. The numbers of voters have increased by about 10 million in three years to around 110 million.
And since an estimated two-thirds of non-resident Pakistanis are men working abroad, mostly in the Gulf, there are likely to be a negligible number of women added to the list. This will exacerbate the gender gap in the electoral rolls. There are already nearly 10 million fewer women voters in the newly updated lists than men. Any addition of non-residents to the rolls will likely compound the gender gap further.
Another deep impact will be navigating through what amounts to a thematic minefield in terms of Pakistani society and the polity’s relationship with its overseas residents.
Pakistan fears that over a half its adult male population of non-resident Pakistanis is based in the Gulf, a majority of whom are not versed well in digital balloting-- leaving only the physical casting of ballots at the embassies as a probable answer.
Adnan Rehmat
Over the years – since the turn of the century – there has been the unresolved issue of how much resident Pakistanis owe their overseas cousins for keeping the country afloat. Remittances – an average of about $20 billion a year for the past decade – keep the country solvent.
There is a popular sentiment – even consensus of sorts – that overseas Pakistanis should be ‘repaid’ for their contribution to the country’s otherwise often mismanaged economy by allowing them a say in policymaking such as allowing them to both vote in elections and to run for parliament.
The problem is an existing law that bars dual nationals from doing either.
Being a non-resident but not a dual national allows you to vote but the Election Commission of Pakistan has repeatedly tried – and failed – in creating a system that allows non-residents to vote.
Serious capacity constraints are one issue, but an even more difficult one is political in nature. Pakistanis tend to be extremely polarized politically and often create unruly scenes in countries like the United Kingdom and United States, where supporters of political parties tend to clash and run afoul of local laws. And all this without a system in place to receive postal or online ballots in charged conditions!
Pakistan fears that over a half its adult male population of non-resident Pakistanis is based in the Gulf, a majority of whom are not versed well in digital balloting-- leaving only the physical casting of ballots at the embassies as a probable answer.
But the embassies simply do not have the capacity to manage an exercise that many fear could turn into a law and order situation in other countries.
Without addressing these concerns, the election bill is premature. An extra-parliament engagement between the treasury and opposition parties to address these political and logistical challenges and a broad consensus on the merits of the proposal to pull overseas Pakistanis into the electoral process is desirable before materializing it into a legal framework.
It would be a shame to approve a law that cannot be implemented in practice, and to disappoint the millions of hardworking overseas Pakistanis who deserve better than empty promises.
– Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science.
Twitter: @adnanrehmat1
