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PML, Opp demand body to oversee ECP

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Seven of the country’s major political parties, including the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), on Wednesday called for establishing a parliamentary committee to oversee the electoral process and improve the performance of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The parties were sharing their mutual concerns over the computerised electoral lists at a multi-party roundtable, jointly arranged by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the Centre for Civic Education Pakistan (CCEP). Three opposition parties – Pakistan’s People Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Awami National Party — announced they would file constitutional petitions against the ECP for irregularities in the draft voterss’ list.

Representatives of the PPP, PML-N, ANP, Pukhtunkhawa Milli Awami and the National Party also demanded an audit of the funds provided to the ECP by international donors for the computerisation of electoral rolls.

The speakers urged that the Electoral Rolls Act of 1974 be amended to remove difficulties in the provision of (preliminary and final) computerised electoral lists to political parties and civil society. Such an amendment should incorporate all possibilities associated with available information and communication technologies, such as availability of voters list on the Internet and e-registration, they demanded.

The parties also demanded that the display period should be extended with enhanced public awareness/voter education campaigns to inform people that all previous voters’ lists had been cancelled and every eligible voter had to get him/herself re-registered.

The speakers stressed that the ECP should immediately start holding regular forums with political parties on all aspects of the electoral process. Senator Latif Khosa of the PPP criticised the requirement of Computerised National Identity Cards for enrolment as a voter. “The Constitution, the Electoral Rolls Act of 1974, the Representation of Peoples’ Act, and the National Registration Act of 1973 do not talk about such a requirement,” he said. The PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal demanded an audit of the donors fund given to the ECP. He alleged that irregularities had been willfully committed and the government was planning to rig the elections.

Azeem Chaudhry of the ruling PML admitted that there were many problems in the voters list and asked the political parties to accept the prime minister’s offer to develop a consensus mechanism for free and fair elections.

Senator Abdul Malik of the National Party and Akram Shah, general secretary of PkMAP, said that display centres were non-existent in several areas of Balochistan. He said it was not the ECP but the establishment that was responsible for manipulation of the voter registration process.

Hashim Babar of the ANP demanded an independent election commission be reconstituted. Senator Safdar Abbasi, Farhatullah Babar, Farzana Raja, Amir Fida Paracha and Palwasha Behram of PPP, Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry of PML-N, Yakoot Jamilur Rahman of the ruling PML, Sheila Fruman, country director of NDI, and Zafarullah Khan, executive director of CCE, also addressed the occasion.

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