A meeting of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was held here to review the electoral preparedness with Chief Election Commissioner, former justice Hamid Ali Mirza, in the chair. The meeting was also attended by members of EC including Justice Mohammad Roshan Essani, former justices Riaz Kayani and Fazal-ur-Rehman, besides Ishtiak Ahmad Khan, Secretary ECP and other senior officers.
Ishtiak Ahmed Khan said it is the constitutional obligation of the ECP to hold free and fair elections to the satisfaction of the nation with a strategy to complete necessary tasks in the given timeline. The following matters were discussed and decided: With regard to increased number of census blocks, the Secretary, Statistics Division informed that a notification to freeze the numbers of census block was being issued.
The commission was further informed that Population Census Organisation will provide data of all Census Blocks in a digitised form to the ECP. Nadra informed that electoral rolls with regard to the ten constituencies where bye-elections are scheduled to be held on February 25, 2012 have been updated/prepared and provided to the ECP. The scanning and data entry of 85 million voters have also been successfully completed and now its printing is going to be started.
Moreover, after completion of printing process, Nadra will be in a position to deliver preliminary electoral rolls to the ECP that will be displayed at more than 50 thousand display centres across the country in the third week of current month. In addition, Nadra and ECP will work together for updating of electoral rolls in future also.
The commission was also informed that a code 8300 is being approved by the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) to enable the voters to get information through SMS. This facility will be available from March 1, 2012 at the cost of only Rs 2. For having check over election's expenses during election campaigns, the ECP will associate Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to ensure that election expenses are within the prescribed limits and according to law keeping in view the Indian best practices for controlling election expenses. In this regard, a high level meeting is going to be held soon.
The issue of preparing ballot papers was discussed in detail to make it safe and secure having all possible special security features and to preclude the possibility of printing of bogus ballot paper by any quarter. It was agreed to import latest technology for this purpose and use non-market special paper for preparation of ballot papers. Expert views of MD, Printing Corporation of Pakistan, representative of Security Printing Corporation, Post Office Foundation, UNDP and IFES were also considered.
Establishment of permanent polling stations was also decided so that the voters could be assigned polling stations well before the elections. As it would require necessary legislation, therefore, after legislation, the lists of permanent polling stations shall be placed on ECP's website for information of general public well in advance. The commission was informed that UNDP will provide transparent ballot boxes to cover the existing deficiencies as well as cater the need of ever-increasing numbers of voters. Seals for ballot boxes have already been manufactured and provided to the Provincial Election Commissioners.
UNDP will also assist the ECP to have better and faster result management system to ensure complete transparency and quick announcement of election results. Regarding voting rights to the Overseas Pakistanis, a meeting of the ECP with experts of UNDP and IFES was decided to be held on February 14, 2012 to finalise modus operendi regarding it.
Electronic Voting Machine has been finalised and the ECP approved its specifications. This machine will be used in any bye-election on a pilot project basis. The training of District Returning Officer, Returning Officer and polling officers was considered in detail and representative of UNDP informed that they would train fifteen hundred DROs, AROs while IFES will train five hundred thousand polling staff for coming elections.
As the population census report is to be published by the PCO in second half of 2013, and as no fresh delimitation is to be carried out for next general elections, therefore, the Commission decided that re-description of constituencies in Sindh shall be started from February 15, 2012 in Sindh Province, from 15th March 2012 in Balochistan, from April 15, 2012 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and from May 15, 2012 in Punjab Province. Besides, the Secretary ECP, in pursuance of Supreme Court orders, will also visit the Sindh province and will have a meeting with the Chief Secretary, Sindh and all concerned in this regard.-PR