ISLAMABAD – Conducting elections in any country in the world is anextremely costly exercise running into billions of dollars. The challengeis even more real in a country like Pakistan which has previously seendemocracy being subservient to the military. Little wonder then that thecost of conducting elections here has seen an exponential rise in the lastten years and has now more than doubled to more than US$ 3 billion.
According to a report in Pakistan-based Dawn, the expenditure on electionsin the country has seen a massive rise since 2008 when the approximate costwas pegged at US$ 1.5 billion. This went up to US$ 3 billion in the nextedition of elections – in 2013. In this period, the number of registeredvoters went up by 5 million – from 81 million to 86 million. That numberhas now seen a massive rise and this year, approximately 106 million peoplein the country have the right to cast their vote in the July 25 elections.
The report does mention that the monetary expenditures mentioned are totalestimated costs and that the budget of the country’s election commissionforms only a part of it. But even that has seen a massive rise this year -going up from approximately US$ 36 million in 2013 to US$ 163 million, afour-time jump.
Some of the reasons cited for the jump in expenses of the electioncommission this year are rise in remuneration for temporary staff appointedfor elections, ballots being printed on water-proof and expensive paper andfor better management of the entire process of voting.
These figures though are only an indicative in nature as tracking everysingle money trail is largely believed to be impossible because of thevolume of cash involved.
Tracking flow of cash, of course, is not a problem restricted to Pakistanalone. The role of money is seen as crucial in democracies around theworld, including in the world’s largest democracy of India. And for thesake of comparison, approximately US$ 4 billion was spent for conductingthe Lok Sabha elections of 2014. True, money may not grow on trees but itsrole does rise in democracies with each passing year.