Inordinate delays: Govt still unsure over expats right to vote

Lawmaker say only viable option of voting seems to be through cellphones or the internet.

ISLAMABAD: The government is apparently still undecided over including overseas Pakistanis in the electoral system. The authorities failed to provide a satisfactory reply in the lower house of parliament on Thursday for the inordinate delays in introducing a voting system for the Pakistanis living abroad.

When asked whether overseas Pakistanis could cast their votes in the general elections in 2018 or not, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sheikh Aftab Ahmad was unable to provide a definitive reply or a timeframe for bringing the issue to parliament.

Speaking during the question-hour in the National Assembly, he said around the time of the 2013 elections, a presidential ordinance was enforced to include the overseas Pakistanis into the voting process but it could not be implemented due to time constraints.



For the next elections, he added, the relevant parliamentary committee had constituted a sub-committee headed by MNA Dr Arif Alvi to review the voting status of overseas Pakistanis.

He said all party heads were participating in the sub-committee and there was no difference of opinion.

While Ahmad said the body would present its report, none of the ministers gave a tentative deadline for it.

Alvi told The Express Tribune the sub-committee had been working to ensure the possibilities of electronic voting machines and biometric verification of overseas Pakistanis.

He added voting for Pakistanis abroad was not possible through postal ballots as it was a time-consuming process.

A postal voting system was ruled out, because of time constraints and unavailability of a proper delivery system in some countries. Secondly, physically gathering a large number of voters, returning officers and election officers, would be impractical and could create a law and order situation in Saudi Arabia.

There are 93,072,617 registered voters in the country. Citizens holding national identity cards and above the age of 18 years are enrolled as voters in electoral rolls.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th,  2016.