Major electoral reforms on the anvil

Parliamentary committee reviews 70 amendments proposed to be made in election law ahead of polls

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led coalition government is likely to introduce a number of amendments to the Election Act, 2017 ahead of the upcoming general elections—scheduled for October this year—to ensure timely submission of election results.

On Tuesday, the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms met in the Parliament House to hold in-camera deliberations on the 73 proposed amendments to the Elections Act, 2017.

The committee, chaired by MNA Ayaz Sadiq, later completed a preliminary review of 70 of the 73 amendments proposed by different political parties, said some sources privy to the discussions in the meeting.

Representatives of the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) also attended the meeting and gave their input and recommendations on the proposed amendments.

At the meeting, some political parties expressed serious reservations over the delay in announcement of election results. Some of them even suggested not to accept the results submitted after a delay.

Some members of the committee also proposed making it mandatory for the election staff to submit election results within a specific time duration. They recommended that in case of a delay, the presiding officer should be bound to offer solid reasons for the delay.

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As per the proposed amendments, the returning officers will ensure provision of high tech communication devices—latest smart phones and best internet devices—to the presiding officers.

The caretaker government will be bound to ensure alternate means of quick communication of results in areas where internet services are not available. A presiding officer will be bound to send a picture of the document carrying election results and his signature to the returning officer.

At the last general elections—held on July 25, 2018—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 a Results Transmission System (RTS). The RTS was an Android and iPhone-based app that was to be used for sending results from 85,000 polling stations to the ECP headquarters.

The system was initially running smoothly but started to malfunction when the results started pouring in large numbers. Later, almost all the political parties contesting elections accused authorities of rigging the polls to bring into power the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

The PTI member in the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms—Senator Ali Zafar—did not attend the committee meeting on Tuesday.