AAMIR SAEED

ISLAMABAD: Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Babar Yaqoob said on Tuesday that recently passed Elections Act 2017 has empowered the Commission and it would help conduct fair and free elections in the country.

Speaking to media persons at a training workshop here, he said the Commission has got numerous important powers through the newly passed election law and this would help hold transparent general elections.

The secretary lauded the role of the Parliament for giving more autonomy to the ECP with regard to financial matters while the Election Commission will also have powers to form its rules with the feedback from stakeholders and general public.

He said now polling staff will work under the full control of the Commission, adding that the Commission has four partners including the media, civil society, donors and political parties to ensure free and fair election.

The Commission has become more accountable before general public, civil society and media, he said, adding that the Commission will present reports frequently to the Parliament besides making public its several other things.

The present assemblies will complete their five-year tenure on June 5, 2018 and before it the ECP is required to carry out new delimitations of all 272 constituencies across the country and finalize the voters list.

The secretary, however, expressed his concern over delay in legislation for allowing the Election Commission to carry out delimitation exercise on the basis of provisional results of the census.

He said that it is not possible to conduct next general elections on the old constituencies that were delimited on the basis of 1998 census results.

The existing seats have no legal and constitutional status to have election on them after national census-2017, he said, adding, notification of results of national census-2017 was necessary for this activity.

The Election Commission has already asked the law secretary to complete the process of required legislation as early as possible; so that the Commission could begin its work on delimitation of the constituencies.

The secretary Election Commission said that delimitation of the constituencies is a cumbersome and lengthy process and would take at least six months.

He said that the delimitation and work on voters’ lists would be undertaken simultaneously, but added that he feared there will be more room for error if the ECP is given less time for these exercises.

He, however, hoped the Parliament will complete the necessary legal formalities regarding delimitation of the constituencies on basis of the provisional census results by November 10 and the Commission will be able to complete its work in time.

During the workshop, the ECP officials said that door-to-door verification of voters will take place this year whereas the electoral rolls will display the voters lists in January 2018.

Similarly, in February the objections to the lists will be fixed and from March to April the new lists will be published. The Commission will finalize the voters lists on May 5, 2018.

Earlier, Additional Secretary (admin) Dr Akhtar Nazir inaugurated the media training workshop and he informed media persons about procurement of necessary material for the next general elections.