ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced to introduce electronic voting in the country by using the NADRA database. He further stated that discussions with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) are going on in this regard.
The prime minister, through a televised media briefing, shared details of electoral reforms his government plans to introduce. He said reforms are aimed at bringing transparency in the electoral process, so that, all political parties accept election results.
The premier also announced that “we will also introduce a system that would allow nine million overseas Pakistanis to participate in the election.”
He further stated that to prevent the use of money in the Senate election, Constitutional amendment would be required for show of hands rather than secret balloting.
The prime minister further stated that all the political parties accept that use of money was a common practice in the Senate election. Now it is up to the opposition parties either to support or not, the Constitutional amendment that requires two-third majority votes for approval, to discourage use of money by holding election through show of hands.
The prime minister said that a sitting government usually does not bring such amendments because of advantage in Senate election.
The prime minister said the PTI had expelled as many as 20 MPAs on the issue of casting votes against party discipline in the Senate election.
The prime minister also stated that as per promise, Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) would be given provincial status in order to remove their sense of deprivation, and added that he wanted to thank the people of G-B.
The prime minister also stated that after the elections in 2013, all the political parties, even those who had won election in one province, had accused rigging in other province, and as many as 133 petitions were filed in election tribunals.
As opposed to 2013, in 2018 election only 102 petitions were filed in election tribunals against rigging, and the highest 23 petitions were filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, whereas both the PML-N and PPP combined filed 24 petitions.
The prime minister said the PTI lost highest 14 National Assembly seats with less than 3,000 votes in 2018 election.
The PM said we wanted the election process to be reformed by removing all the irregularities to ensure transparency in the next election.
Now my effort is to put in place a system such that everyone accepts the results, the prime minister said.
He said that all he wanted was that the election process be made transparent through electoral reforms, so that everyone accepted results after the election.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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