Election Commission of Pakistan issues election preparation orders
ISLAMABAD: NADRA asked to prepare electoral rolls for presiding officers. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday told the Printing Corporation of Pakistan (PCP) and National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to be ready to print ballot papers and to prepare electoral rolls for presiding officers, respectively. This was decided in a meeting of the ECP to finalise an action plan for conducting the next general elections in the country.
Chief Election Commissioner Justice (r) Fakharuddin G Ibrahim chaired an eight-hour- long meeting, during which all procedural, technical and logistic requirements for holding of the next general elections were discussed.
All the four members of the commission, provincial election commissioners, NADRA chairman, census commissioner and top officials of Printing Corporation of Pakistan attended the meeting. Officials of Security Papers Limited, representatives of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) also attended the meeting.
Speaking on the occasion, the chief election commissioner expressed his satisfaction on the accuracy of the electoral rolls. He said that the removal of multiple entries of voters from the voter lists was a major achievement.
Election Commission Secretary Ishtiak Ahmad Khan told reporters that the meeting was significant in terms of consolidating an action plan, tying up loose ends and setting target dates for completion of all the tasks.
Answering a question about talks of local government elections being held prior to the general polls, Khan said that they would follow their constitutional obligation as and when they receive a request from a province. He said that the commission had been approaching provincial government departments for the past two years regarding the enactment of necessary legislation, delimiting of the constituencies and also to obtain the provinces’ view on few important issues.
Khan said that only two provinces had passed legislation, but even those two did not submit a reply to other queries of the commission. He said that the commission had, so far, not received a request from any province for holding local government elections. Khan said that the commission wanted uniformity in the local government laws of all provinces, however, it would not abdicate responsibility even if it were not being done. He said that the commission would hold a meeting with the local government departments of all the four provinces next month. Khan said that the commission would hold a meeting with major political parties on September 27 to discuss matters pertaining to preparation for the upcoming elections and to the fine-tuning of the code of conduct for political parties.
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