ECP insists on constitutional amendment by Nov 10

Officials say next vote has to be held before August 5 as tenure of assemblies ends on June 5

ISLAMABAD: The election authorities on Tuesday warned the government that they would not be able to conduct elections on time unless parliament amends the constitutional clause regarding delimitation of constituencies by the November 10 deadline.

“We can hold elections on time if the government fulfils its constitutional obligation, regarding delimitations by November 10,” Babar Yaqoob, the Secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), told reporters during an interactive session with media persons.

The ECP, last week, gave the government a seven-day deadline to amend the Constitution to allow new delimitations in accordance with the provisional results of the Sixth Population and Housing Census.

The census was held in April this year. The Constitution says the delimitation would be held on the basis of the final results of census. The new election laws stipulate that ECP should finalise polling scheme six months before the general elections.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), which is responsible for providing the final census figures, says it would notify the data in April next year. The ECP officials say given the current tenure of the present assemblies, it would be too late to start delimitation after April.

They want to finalise the election arrangements by April. However, they cannot start the process unless parliament amends the Constitution to use ‘provisional’ census results.

“After the fresh population census, it is not possible for us to conduct next general elections on the basis of existing delimitations. We are not sure how many constituencies the legislatures would be having now,” Yaqoob said.

He explained to the reporters that the elections have to be held within 60 days of the assemblies completing their full term. Since the five-year term of the current assemblies would be ending on June 5, the next election is due before August 5, 2018.

According to Yaqoob, the ECP would start updating the voters’ lists from this month. It would conduct door-to-door verification of the new voters in December and the lists would be put on display in January and the updated lists will be published in March-April. Once updated, the lists would be ‘frozen’, meaning no addition or deletion after May 5.

He said the ECP would continue using electronic voting machines, biometric verification machines and voting for expatriate Pakistanis on an experimental basis. “We don’t want to jump into the use of technology blindly,” he remarked.

Earlier, during the interactive training session, ECP officials informed the media persons that in the coming general elections, special ‘watermark paper’ would be used for the ballot papers. They added the ECP would finalise rules under the newly-passed Elections Act, 2017 in first week of November.

For conducting the election, returning officers would be taken from the judiciary and other government departments.

Under the new laws, contestant for a National Assembly seat would be required to submit Rs30,000 fee, while one for a seat in provincial assembly or Senate would submit Rs20,000 fee, along with their nomination papers. Earlier, this fee was Rs4,000 and Rs2,000 respectively.

Similarly, maximum limit of election expenses has been enhanced to Rs4 million for NA seat, Rs2 million for PA and Rs1.5 million for Senate.

The official said after the new laws, the ECP had got administrative powers over the temporary staff hired from different government departments. These officials would take an oath of impartiality as well, meaning that the ECP could take punitive action against these officials directly, he added.

Yousaf Khattak, Director General Election, said in his presentation that every polling station would have maximum 1,200 voters. Returning officers and assistant returning officers would be appointed two months before the polls, he added.