South Asian parliaments need better systems for elections on reserved seats
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Elections on reserved seats for women and non-Muslims in the assemblies of Pakistan generated a huge controversy recently which is still alive as the Supreme Court has yet to give its final verdict on the question of allocating seats to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) or other parties. The Indian parliament, after a debate of many decades, has finally passed a law to allocate 33 percent seats for women in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of the parliament) and state assemblies. Until recently, the Bangladesh parliament had 14 percent seats reserved for women. The Nepalese electoral system requires that 33 percent members elected through the proportional representation system should be women. The system of reserved seats for women in elected assemblies is prevalent in about 130 countries of the world with considerable variations in the system of election, but the debate on improving the system continues. Can there be a better system of elections on reserved seats to satisfy most of the stakeholders in these countries? Yes, there can.
Perhaps the simplest system is to allocate reserved seats to political parties in proportion to the directly-contested seats won by them. Pakistan uses this system which is also used in Morocco and Mauritania. The Constitution of Pakistan reserves about 18 percent of the total seats in the national and provincial assemblies for women and 3 percent for non-Muslims. A slight variation of this system was used in Bangladesh until the last election and in Pakistan in the past four elections from 1970 to 1988, under which members directly elected in each assembly voted to elect members on reserved seats.
This system is simple but the candidates are not exposed to public campaigning among general voters. The major weakness of the system is that general voters from the community, for whom the seats are reserved, can’t vote for the candidate and therefore the elected members are not accountable to their voters. Members elected on reserved seats under this system are generally considered ‘lesser’ members by their peers and even the governments discriminate against them because they are not directly elected.
The prevailing system of elections to reserved seats in Pakistan has led to discrimination against members indirectly elected on reserved seats.
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob
Another system is where elections for reserved seats are held but only those voters are eligible to vote who belong to the same community for which seats are reserved. This system was used in Pakistan in five general elections from 1985 to 1997, when candidates from religious minorities competed against each other in country-wide constituencies and only members of those religious minorities could vote for the candidates. Although this system provides for direct contact with voters, this system, in many cases, leads to the establishment of large unwieldy constituencies. Campaigning all over the country to reach innumerable pockets of minorities left the electoral field viable for only very rich candidates.
The system of allocating ‘rotating constituencies’ exclusively to candidates for reserved seats of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes has been successfully used in India for the past many elections. Starting with the next general election, the same system will be used to elect women on 33 percent seats in their Lok Sabha (national popular house) and Vidhan Sabhas (state assemblies). Although only candidates from the designated community can contest elections from specified constituencies, all registered voters in that constituency can vote. These designated constituencies are rotated from one electoral cycle to another in order to avoid eliminating general candidates from the contest in a given constituency for a long time. This system is competitive and has been successfully operating in India for 24 percent of the total Lok Sabha seats for scheduled castes and tribes. Once reserved seats for women are also contested under this system, about 57 percent of the constituencies will be unfairly blocked for general candidates.
Finally, there is the system of ‘Alternate Thresholds’ in which a candidate who secures the highest number of votes, will be a winner in the general category of candidates. In addition, the highest percentage of votes secured by a woman and a non-Muslim candidate in the constituency will be recorded. This is quite a rational and competitive system and provides equal chance of electioneering to all candidates.
The prevailing system of elections to reserved seats in Pakistan has led to discrimination against members indirectly elected on reserved seats. There is, therefore, a need to switch to a more rational system of elections to reserved seats. The parliament should opt for either the ‘alternate thresholds’ or ‘rotating constituencies’ system, both of which allow reserved seat candidates to campaign and win by popular votes within the categories of reserved candidates.
- The writer is the president of Pakistan-based think tank, PILDAT; Tweets at @ABMPildat; Email: [email protected]
