ECP ahead of its schedule for elections, says CEC

Sikandar Sultan Raja affirms every step will be taken on time

ISLAMABAD:

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is ahead of its scheduled deadline in achieving its various tasks for holding the general elections in the country on Feb 8, 2024, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja said.

Talking informally to media persons here on Friday, CEC Raja stressed that every step towards the election would be taken on time. “The constituencies have been published and everything else will happen in due time,” the CEC said.

“We are doing everything before our scheduled time, the announcement of the election schedule, as well as the appointment of DROs (District Returning Officers) and ROs (Returning Officers) will also be made on time,” Raja told reporters.

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When asked about the specific date of the announcement of the election schedule, he said the voting would be held on Feb 8, adding that they could subtract 54 days from that date, a reference to the mandatory 54-day period for the election process.

CEC Raja declined to give any reply to a question, when asked whether the DROs and the ROs would be taken from the judiciary or the bureaucracy. “No comment,” CEC Raja told the reporter with a broad smile.

On Thursday, the ECP released the final list of constituencies completed under the fresh delimitation based on the 7th Population and Housing Census 2023, in which the representation of the newly merged districts in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) in the National Assembly was reduced from 12 to 6.

An ECP spokesperson explained on Friday that the 25th Constitutional Amendment in 2018 resulted in the merger of the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas with K-P, which eliminated the 12 seats allocated to the former tribal region.

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Now, the spokesperson added that the K-P representation in the lower house of parliament had been increased from 39 to 45 seats after the addition of six seats from the newly merged districts.

Similarly, the K-P Assembly also saw an increase in the general seats from 99 to 115, marking a rise of 16 seats.

The ECP statement came in response to a criticism from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Babar Awan. Talking to reporters, Awan termed the reduction in the number of K-P’s National Assembly seats an attack on the province’s autonomy.

“I would like to ask the Election Commission under what authority the six seats of [erstwhile] Fata were abolished. It is written in the Constitution that there will be a 342-strong National Assembly. This is a direct interference in the provincial autonomy,” he said.

The ECP spokesperson underlined that the authority to determine seats in the national and provincial assemblies lied within the purview of parliament, and the Election Commission had defined the constituencies based on the constitutionally designated number of seats.

The spokesperson deemed Awan’s assertion an ineffective effort to sow confusion among the public. He said that in his capacity as a legal professional, Babar Awan should adhere to constitutional and legal constraints.

(WITH INPUT FROM APP)