No breakthrough on ECP appointments

Sources say govt will present two new names for the post of CEC

ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the parliamentary panel on appointment of the chief election commissioner (CEC) and two members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) ended on Tuesday without making any headway with the government and opposition expecting to reach a consensus soon.

Both the sides will deliberate on the names of the CEC on Friday. Sources said the government will forward two new names for the said post.

The names forwarded by the government earlier could not be agreed upon.

After the meeting, PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said that both the sides had agreed on the appointment of two ECP members, while the matter of CEC was still undecided.

PML-N’s Mushahidullah Khan opined that the issue of CEC appointment should be resolved in the parliament. However, he said, the name of CEC was near finalisation and would be decided in the next meeting.

The government side was represented by Fakhr Imram, Dr Shireen Mazari, Asad Umar, Pervaiz Khattak and Ali Muhammad Jan, while Shazia Marri, Naveed Qamar, Mushahidullah Khan, Rana Tanvir, Rana Sanaullah and Sheza Fatima Khawaja appeared on behalf of the opposition.

The next session of the parliamentary committee will be held on Friday.

The ECP has been without a CEC since Sardar Mohammad Raza’s retirement in early December, although the Constitution mandates that when ECP positions fall vacant, they must be filled within 45 days.

On August 22, President Arif Alvi had appointed Khalid Mehmood Siddiqui as ECP member for Sindh and Munir Ahmed Kakar for Balochistan against the positions vacated by Abdul Ghaffar Soomro and retired Justice Shakeel Baloch, from the two provinces.

But the CEC refused to administer the oath of office to both of them while terming their appointment unconstitutional.

In a written statement, the ECP said the president had made the appointments “in violation of clauses 2A and 2B of Article 213 of the Constitution”.

On November 4, the IHC suspended the appointments and referred the matter to parliament.