Govt may go for early dissolution of NA

Federal law minister says extending term of incumbent legislatures out of question

ISLAMABAD:

 

A federal minister has categorically stated that there will be no extension in the term of the National Assembly; rather the national and two provincial legislatures may be dissolved a few days before the end of their term to give an additional 30 days to political parties to run their election campaigns.

“There will be no extension in the NA’s term. The assembly is completing its term. We have even kept the option of early dissolution of the assembly open,” Minister for Law Azam Nazeer Tarar said while talking to some journalists after a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms on Tuesday.

Tarar, who belongs to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), however, clarified that a decision with regard to early dissolution of assemblies had not yet been taken.

“As far as early dissolution of the assembly is concerned; no one has ilm-e-ghaib [knowledge of the unknown]. It depends on the given situation,” he added.

Minister for Commerce Naveed Qamar—of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)—who was also walking out of the conference room after attending the meeting revealed that it was the PPP’s proposal to dissolve the remaining legislatures on Aug 8, four days before the completion of their five-year term.

“The PPP has proposed dissolving the National Assembly and two provincial assemblies – Sindh and Balochistan – on Aug 8; a proposal which has already been under consideration by the ruling coalition as it will give them three months for election campaign,” he said.

Under Article 224 of the Constitution, if any assembly is dissolved before the completion of its term then elections are held within 90 days. If the assembly is dissolved on the completion of its term, then the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has to conduct polls within 60-day time.

Qamar said the PPP proposed early dissolution of assemblies but the final decision would be taken by the ruling party – the PML-N.

Electoral reforms

The commerce minister said the PPP wanted electoral reforms before the elections as issues like the RTS failure were crucial to be addressed before polls through the electoral reforms.

The RTS—Results Transmission System— was an Android and iPhone-based app that was to be used for sending results from 85,000 polling stations to the ECP headquarters at the July 2018 general elections.

The ECP was supposed to release election results at 2am on July 26. However, the polls supervisory authority did not release the results on time citing glitches in the RTS, sparking a huge controversy with almost all political parties accusing the authorities of rigging the polls.

Qamar said it was necessary to build consensus among all political parties on electoral reforms. He said the PPP did not support further extension of the current setup and the caretaker setup should not operate beyond the constitutional period in any case. “The PPP will not back down from its principled stance regarding the extension of the current assembly’s term,” he said.

A few days ago, a senior PPP leader, while requesting anonymity, had confirmed to The Express Tribune that the dissolution of assemblies was likely to take place a week or few days before the conclusion of the term of assemblies so that political parties might get more time for election campaigns.

Talking with reference to electoral reforms, Azam Nazeer Tarar said there are several anomalies in the Elections Act, 2017 and the purpose of the in-camera meeting was to ensure that not only free, fair, and impartial elections were held but they should also be seen to be held.

To a question if the committee had had any contact with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Tarar said that PTI’s Senator Ali Zafar was a notified member of the electoral reforms’ committee and he was invited to attend the meeting on Tuesday but he did not show up.

Tarar said that he would personally request Zafar to attend the next meeting of the committee as addressing the anomalies was a national service.

“The parties outside parliament – mainly the PTI – have already been heard by a Senate committee. The committee has also heard the views of other institutions like PILDAT and FAFEN.”

He said the committee was reviewing and fine-tuning the same points and not introducing new amendments. “The final recommendations [of the committee will be presented before everyone,” he added.