Taking an initiative: KU students to observe electoral process on Dec 5

32 students have been selected under FAFEN and PPF to observe the voting process.

KARACHI: Two teachers of the mass communication department at the Karachi University, Prof Dr Tahir Masood and Noman Ansari, have taken an initiative to engage their students into playing a professional role in the upcoming local government elections.

Their dream will come true on December 5 when 32 students of the mass communication department will work as silent observers on the election day in District Central.

Their observations will be included in the observation work of the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) for local government elections in Karachi and a copy will also be sent to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for further improving the electoral system of the country.

For this, they contacted Fafen, a non-profit NGO committed to fair elections and good governance in the country. Along with Fafen, the department’s former chairperson, Masood, also contacted Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), an independent training centre for fresh journalists, for the purpose.



Each observer is going to observe four polling stations and, as part of their duty, they have to fill five forms. Four forms will be general ones, asking questions about the pace of activity, number of voters and the environment at the four stations, while the fifth one will be about the result of any one station out of the four they observed.

At the end of the polling day, students will have to collect the copies of form 11 and 12 from the polling staff, along with checking the status of numbers of votes cast, tendered votes, and challenged votes.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Ansari said around 65 students had registered to participate in this activity, out of which 32 were selected. “We wanted our students to observe the political practice in Pakistan as this is the first local government election under a democratic government.”

Training

A day-long training workshop was arranged at the varsity’s mass communication department on Wednesday. The staff of the PPF, along with two trainers, who work for the Fafen, visited the department and briefed the students about the electoral process and the importance of the voting process.

The session started with a brief explanation on the importance of the local government system and the trainer, Mehfooz Iqbal, while reading a hand-out for the students, informed them that after the 18th Amendment, the system of local government has become a constitutional need. “The most important aspect is that it transfers powers to the lower level,” he said.

The other trainer, Sadia Shakil, explained the code of conduct for the observers. She told the students that they will be issued a special card from the ECP, with which they will be allowed to witness the voting activity inside the polling stations.

Also, she explained to the students that their attire on the election day should not reflect support for any political party.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd,  2015.