Morning News
22nd July 1958
Postponing The polls
The conference of the party leaders which met in Karachi yesterday, has sprung a surprise on the country by its decision to hold the general elections by February, 1959. This was not the object for which it had been convened. Its main purpose, as initially announced, was to fix the date in a month that was determined in advance and over which all sections of opinion were then unanimously agreed. There was never a general demand for postponement and when some of the leaders like Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had expressed themselves against the November deadline, they were not speaking on behalf of their parties but purely in their individual capacities. Mr. Suhrawardy, at least in his public statements, was always for sticking to the November schedule. Not until the Prime Minister made his speech there was the slightest hint that the decision of the conference would belie popular expectations. Even Mr. Firoz Khan Noon was opposed to the extension of the date beyond December 31, 1958. Some delay had indeed become inevitable on account of the harvesting season in East Pakistan. Because of the peoples preoccupation the interest in elections would have naturally suffered, resulting in absenteeism on an unprecedented scale. This fear is borne out by the opinion of the district magistrates in the Province, majority of whom is of the view that polling in November would be less than 45 percent and that in any other month is likely to reach as high as 65 percent in some of the districts. This was indeed a strong case for postponement. Voting in the past has no exceeded 50 percent in any of the provinces and in at least one of them the percentage was as low as 30.This is an experience that could not be allowed to be repeated in the country’s first general election, which is expected to be in the nature of a verdict on the record of the present government or for that matter on the record of all the governments before and since the inauguration of the constitution.
Owing their rise and fall to the ever changing party alignments in the National Assembly, they were neither responsible nor responsive to public opinion, and had in fact often acted in disregard of popular feeling on many an issue of national importance in the field of domestic and foreign policies. The absence of accountability had tended to undermine the people’s faith in the constitution and democracy. That faith had at any cost to be sustained if we were to survive as a free and democratic society. The government and the parties had more time at their disposal for preparing the country for the polls than for framing the constitution. The difficulties which now confront them could have been easily foreseen when the decision to hold elections in autumn this year was taken. In the absence of plausible grounds for postponing the polls until the middle of February next year, the people will be driven to conclude that motives of political expediency were responsible for so drastic a change in the schedule. The Muslim League leadership alone had the sagacity to predict the outcome of the conference and to dissociate from it on that account.