Amendment bill: Bill seeks greater women’s participation in elections

Senator Sherry Rehman says bill should be passed without delay

ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary panel discussed on Monday an amendment bill regarding inclusion of women in the electoral process to ensure their fundamental right to contest or cast vote in both urban and rural areas is upheld as laid down in the constitution.

Chaired by Senator Saeed Ghani, the meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs considered “The Peoples Representation (Amendment) Bill” which was introduced by Senator Sherry Rehman.

The meeting also included representatives from Free and Fair Election Network and Advocate Salman Akram Raja was invited as a guest speaker.

The bill is aimed at ensuring that in an election in any constituency, if less than 10 per cent female voters have voted, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) shall declare the election of such a constituency void and order re-polling within 30 days of the declaration of the decision of the commission.

Parliamentary Affairs Secretary Manzoor Ali Khan proposed that the bill should be referred to the committee on electoral reforms since the said committee was working on electoral reforms.

On this, Senator Rehman said that the bill should be passed without delay. On the other hand, she noted that referring the bill to the reforms committee would take a long time. Many countries have such a bill in place already. The senator read out different clauses of the bill.

On the recommendation of the committee chairman, the committee deferred the bill for consultation from all political parties and decided to seek more time from the senate chairman for submitting the report of the bill for developing consensus.

Opening another discussion on the issues relating to the ECP, Senator Ghani condemned the interference of judiciary in the matters of the ECP, saying that it ultimately led to issues for political parties and the overall political system.

ECP Secretary Sher Afghan told the committee that under the constitution, the commission is bound to obey the orders of the Supreme Court. “The commission does not have the power to declare any decision of the SC unlawful,” he added.

The committee chairman said that the election commission should be backed by political parties. He called for dialogue between the SC and Chief Election Commissioner.

Moreover, the committee chairman said that the commission was not exercising its powers adequately, which was affecting political parties, political workers and the political system at large.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2016.