Abstract
Democracy is one of the universal and indivisible core values and principles to develop an
inclusive society. In any democratic state, the will of the people is the basic requisite to
derive the authority of the government. It requires free and fair elections in a way that the
sanctity of the ballot be never compromised. To ensure the credibility and impartiality of the
elections, states adopt a coherent and comprehensive policy to develop a mechanism to
conduct the elections in a free and transparent manner under an impartial and empowered
Electoral management body. The history of the Pakistan is rich with numerous incidents,
including the sacking of elected governments through unconstitutional avenues,explicitly or
implicitly under GHQ and the legitimization these moves through apex courts and fraudulent
referendum. These frequent interventions fuel up the institutional decay and increase the
trust deficit between the institutions and the people of Pakistan. Moreover, the democratic
culture could not be internalized and institutionalized and also impeded Election Commission
of Pakistan in its transformation as a strong national institution. Resultantly, each and every
election met a lot of hue and cry and the credibility and authenticity of the elections used to
remain at stake. An endless wrangling of allegations and counter allegations provokes, which
poisons the polity of the state. There has been a persistent demand to establish an impartial
election management body which used to maintain the sanctity of the ballot and will of the
people in true letter and spirit. The study will encircle the power and structure of the Election
Commission of Pakistan after eighteenth constitutional amendment and how it has
succeeded to fulfill the demands and expectations of the stakeholders. The study will also
compare the powers, structure, and credibility of the election management body of Pakistan
to other regional states and how the loopholes, if any, can be addressed in political and
constitutional manner.
