ECP meeting on Karachi voters put off

Not enough poll commission members available, say ECP officials.

ISLAMABAD:

Election officials have postponed until sometime next week a meeting, which was scheduled to take up the issue of Karachi voters, among others.

Although no actual reason was cited for the meeting’s rescheduling, Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) officials suggested that there were not enough members of the commission available.

The meeting had been called by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim on Friday to discuss and finalise a plan on how to proceed further in light of the Supreme Court’s order on the delimitation of Karachi’s constituencies and door-to-door verification of voters in the metropolis. Participants were also expected to debate the spate of violence during this week’s by-elections, held in Sindh and Punjab.



The ECP had taken serious notice of incessant firing by winning candidates and their supporters after the by-polls in various constituencies, including Gujrat and Sialkot.

The commission has asked some private television channels to send it video footage of the firing, which was captured by their cameras.

The CEC has directed the Punjab election commissioner to contact the Punjab chief secretary and District Coordination Officers to lodge cases against those accused for violating section 144 and for harassing the general public.

It is likely that the meeting will now take place next week, an ECP official said.

Meanwhile, the ECP is yet to issue official notifications to the winners of the by-elections.

An ECP official said that the commission is waiting on reports of expenditures from the returning candidates to examine if any one of them had blatantly violated the code of conduct. He added the commission is empowered to disqualify candidates, even after notifying them, if it is proven that they violated the code of conduct.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2012.