Election symbol: PPP seeks ‘sword’ after 40 years

ECP calls security a major challenge for polls, seeks to deploy army

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan believes security will be a major challenge for the July 25th general election, warning that attempts could be made to sabotage polls.

In his briefing to the Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior, Secretary Election Commission Babar Yaqoob recalled a district election commissioner was assassinated during the last elections while terrorist attacks were carried out on another few election officials in Balochistan.

According to ECP secretary around 20,000 polling stations would fall in ‘most sensitive’ category. ECP wants provincial governments to install CCTV cameras inside and outside such polling stations. When committee members asked about deployment of army during polls, he said ECP would discuss it with caretaker government.

Senator Rehman Malik who heads the panel said his committee would support the move if ECP would need helicopters. He asked private TV channels to reserve some time for public awareness on elections. He said security may be provided to all those politicians who face security threats. The committee decided to constitute a committee headed by PML-N senator Javed Abbasi on security issues of political leaders.

PPP to contest polls under ‘sword symbol’

While most of the major political parties want to contest elections on the election symbol they had been using during previous polls, Pakistan Peoples’ Party has applied to get “sword” symbol for this election. PPP had contested 1970 and 1977 general elections with ‘sword’ symbol. It has been contesting with ‘arrow’ symbol since then.



Secretary General PPP Nayyar Bukhari would contest his party’s case in ECP today for new symbol. ECP has a list of around 330 approved symbols by the President of Pakistan. The ones left after being allocated to political parties would be given to independent candidates.

Sword was among the three symbols that were deleted from ECP’s list after General Ziaul Haq imposed martial law in the country after the 1977 general elections. Other two were ‘plough’ on which opposition alliance tagged as Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) had contested polls against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s PPP, and ‘scale’ used by Jamat e Islami in the 1970 polls.

ECP meets today

ECP in a meeting today (Tuesday) would discuss allocation of election symbols to political parties.

The election commission had asked political parties to submit applications for election symbols by May 25th. It also asked political parties to ensure that they fulfill all legal provisions to get election symbols for the polls. The provisions include an affidavit stating they will allot at least five per cent of general seat tickets to women.

It is the first time that a special provision was added in the election laws to bind political parties to give tickets to women. This is an addition to reserved seats for women in all the legislative bodies.

Among the other conditions a political party is required to provide a certificate that it has been holding intra-party elections within the time frame mentioned in respective party’s constitution, and statement of assets and accounts of the party signed by the party head.

Political parties contesting elections in a coalition were asked to apply for a joint election symbol as well. However, to do that, all the political groups that would constitute a coalition must individually fulfill the conditions of declaring assets and holding intra-party elections.  The coalition as a whole would also have to submit a covenant regarding granting five per cent tickets to women.