ECP suspends 154 lawmakers
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has temporarily suspended the membership of 154 lawmakers, including several federal ministers, to force them to submit details of their assets.
The suspended lawmakers did not submit annual details of their assets and liabilities to the ECP within the stipulated time period in accordance with the law. They include 8 senators, 31 MNAs, 82 MPAs from Punjab, 16 MPAs from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 14 MPAs from Sindh and three legislators of the Balochistan Assembly.
The legal requirement, however, is a mere formality – membership in the respective assemblies is restored as soon as a member submits the statements, for which no mechanism exists to prove their transparency.
Since there is no procedure to verify the statements of members regarding their assets, the ECP performs a perfunctory role – after it receives these statements, it publishes them in an official gazette every year as they are.
The eight suspended senators are Interior Minister Rehman Malik, chief minister of Balochistan’s brother Lashkari Raisani (although he has already resigned from Senate), former privatisation minister Waqar Ahmad Khan and his father Gulzar Ahmad Khan, Ahmad Hasan, Eng Malik Rasheed Ahmad, Haji Saifullah Khan Bangash and Hilalur Rahman.
The 31 suspended MNAs include Minister for Kashmir Affairs Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani’s sons Ali Musa Gilani and Abdul Qadir Gilani, former federal minister Ali Aziz Kurd, former chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Education Abid Sher Ali, and PML-Likeminded leader Kashmala Tariq.
The Punjab Assembly tops the list of defaulting lawmakers, forming over half of
the total suspended lawmakers. The 82 suspended
MPAs include Yousaf Raza Gilani’s brother Ahmad Mujtaba Gilani and the daughter of Wattoo, Robina Shaheen Wattoo.
The suspended MPAs from Sindh include two former provincial ministers Syeda Marvi Rashdi and Mukesh Kumar.
In the K-P Assembly, the 16 suspended legislators include two provincial ministers –Finance Minister Mohammad Humayun Khan and Zakat and Ushr Minister Shamroz Khan.
The three suspended members of the Balochistan Assembly are provincial ministers Ainullah Shams
and Abdul Khaliq and President of the Balochistan chapter of the Pakistan People’s Party Women’s Wing, Samina Raziq.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 16th, 2012.
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The scope of Pakistan's ECP seems to be very different from India. In India, ECP gets involved during the election process to make sure that the eligibility criteria are met for all candidates, to ensure that election speeches do not breach guidelines issues by it and finally that there is no disruption on the actual election day. There its role ends. Once people are elected and in assembly, EC has no role to play until the next election roles around.
All of them should be Bnned for coming to assemblies for rest of their lives not only till they submit false statments.