Non-compliant publicity material removed

ECP says posters, banners must be of prescribe measurement, no billboards allowed

ISLAMABAD: On the directive of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), district monitoring officers have removed large number of banners, panaflex and signboards of political parties exceeding the approved size specified by the commission.

"Hundreds of thousands of such display boards have been removed on the directives of ECP in Islamabad and Rawalpindi,” an official of the commission said.



The operation to remove illegal publicity material is still going on in every major city of the country, he said.

Any publicity material that does not complies with the ECP code of conduct will be removed, he said. The commission had issued strict directive to the political parties to cooperate with the district administration and do not create any hindrance in removing oversized banners and posters.

He said that the district monitoring officer has levied a fine of Rs50,000 on Rana Amir Shahzad a candidate contesting election from NA 147 for taking out a rally without informing the district administration and also committing aerial firing in the rally.

ECP monitoring team in Rawalpindi district had also removed illegal publicity material from nearly 140 points.

To another question, he said the ECP had appointed as many as 592 monitoring teams throughout the country to monitor election campaign.



He said that the ECP would not tolerate any violation on account of publicity material.

As per the Code of Conduct, no person or a political party can affix or distribute posters, handbills, pamphlets, leaflets, banners or portraits, larger than the sizes prescribed by the commission.

The election code of conduct has set the size of portraits two by three  feet; banners three by nine feet; posters eighteen by twenty three inches; and handbills should not be larger than six by nine inches.

However, candidates have put up huge hoardings at several points of the city in different constituencies. Not only the ECP’s already-set criteria are being violated, but the candidates are also spending a fortune on their election campaign.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2018.