ECP, political parties join hands to ensure transparent election process

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Tuesday organised a fourth consultative meeting with leaders of all major political parties and discussed various issues with them aimed at making the election process transparent and error-free.

Briefing the mediamen about the meeting, Secretary ECP Ishtiak Ahmed Khan said that the ECP was continuously taking steps to make the electoral process effective, free, fair, transparent and credible to build stakeholder's trust.

ECP had invited the representatives from each party to participate in the meeting, and a detailed presentation has been given to the participants by the PCO, NADRA and ECP, he said.

The political parties which are the key stakeholders and their participation in democratic process are fundamental to the health of democracy, he said.

Chairman NADRA told the representatives of political parties that NADRA has so far issued Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) to 93 percent population. He assured them to issue CNICs to maximum people.

ECP has planned to train 4000 officials to subsequently work as returning officers. Out of which about 1000 will perform duties of returning officers, he said.

The rest 3000 officials would perform the duties as observers as practiced in India, the secretary said.

The Census Methodology used by the Population Census Organisation (PCO) to demarcate the new Census Blocks, the role of NADRA for voter registration in collaboration with ECP and the method adopted on ground verification process for revision of electoral rolls by field officers of the ECP were discussed in the meeting.

Political party's area of concern was enhancing the number of census blocks from 104,000 to 140,000. It has been decided that the representatives of ECP, NADRA and PCO would brief the parties on the issue, the secretary ECP said.

Therefore, an open and transparent approach on part of the ECP is essential to give the political parties a feeling of inclusiveness in the electoral process, he said.

The ECP has shared progress so far made on the decisions of previous meetings in achieving major objectives essential for conducting credible elections and obtain valuable views and feedback of the participants on other relating issues.

Ishtiak Ahmed Khan said the ECP noted valuable views of the political parties regarding important issues including extending the time frame of ongoing door to door verification process owing to floods and bad law and order situation in some areas. The ECP would decide on the issue by end of September, he said.

Political parties have asked the ECP to announce polling scheme prior to the polling and also use private buildings as polling stations.

The political representatives in the consultative meeting also urged the ECP to devise a system to ensure prompt decisions by election tribunals.

The ECP has decided to nominate retired judges and ensure the decision of election disputes within 120 days.

Political Finance system/Mechanism has also discussed to monitor electoral expenditures to enforce the ceilings prescribed in the Rules.

A total of 170 political parties have been registered with ECP and the parties having representation in parliament was invited to attend the consultative conference.

The representatives of PML (Q), PML (N), Jamat e Islami, Pakistan Tehrik e Insaaf, ANP, PPP, PPP (Sherpao),PKML, Pushtoonkhwa, PML (F), Pashtoonkhaw Milli Awami Party and Pakistan National Muslim League attended the fourth consultative meeting.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011