ECP meeting: Army out of barracks, into the polling stations

Soldiers to be posted inside stations in sensitive areas.

ISLAMABAD:

Polling staff will not be the only ones inside the stations when many citizens go to cast their vote come election day.

“The army will be deployed inside and outside the polling stations in Karachi, Fata, parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and stations declared sensitive in Punjab,” Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan told reporters after a crucial meeting of the commission on Thursday.

By most accounts, it is the first time that the army’s services have been requested inside polling stations. In the past, the army’s presence outside “most sensitive” polling stations was deemed sufficient. But this time, the commission has upped the ante.

The demand for the army to be deployed  inside polling stations had mainly been championed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, who also met Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim on Thursday.



Re-verification of Karachi voters

Meanwhile, in an expected development, the ECP approved the re-verification of 8.6 million voters in Karachi with the help of army personnel. The move comes on the heels of complaints that some three million people settled in Karachi for years have been enrolled at their permanent addresses outside the city without their consent.

The commission has tweaked its earlier proposal to carry out the verification process through the army. Instead, civil servants will conduct the exercise while being escorted by army troops for security purposes.

“We will be writing letters to the defence secretary and corps commander Karachi to seek the services of army personnel for verification process,” Khan told reporters on Thursday.

According to the ECP, there are a total of 13,612 census blocks in Karachi with 8.6 million registered voters. The commission will require the services of around 18,000 enumerators for the verification of these voters. Khan held that the verification process would be completed within 65 days, which will include the on-ground effort and the uploading of data by National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).



Delimitation

That was not all on the menu for the ECP regarding Karachi.

In its judgment on petitions filed by various political parties on the matter, the Supreme Court had ordered the Election Commission on Dec 5 to re-conduct door-to-door verification of the electoral rolls.

Speaking on the SC orders, the ECP secretary said the commission had directed its Sindh chapter to come up with a consolidated plan for delimitation in Karachi as per the Supreme Court order, adding that the Sindh election commissioner had sought two weeks to submit a delimitation plan.

Code of conduct

Khan said the newly adopted ECP code of conduct will be strictly followed during the upcoming polls to ensure transparency, adding that all presiding officers will be given powers of a magistrate, some who will keep those powers for a day before and a day after the polling till they finalise the results.

“Once they (presiding officers) will be given full powers we would expect them to use these powers. Action would be taken if the commission receives any complaints against these presiding officers,” said Khan.

Earlier, the commission had asked private TV channels to submit footage of firing incidents reported in some constituencies during the recently-held by-polls. However, the ECP secretary said the commission did not find any major violation by contesting candidates, adding that if any contesting candidate still had grievances they could approach the election tribunals.

Khan, however, did admit that there was a need to learn lessons from the recent by-polls, adding that in the upcoming elections, flaws noted will be removed.

(Read: Election irregularities)

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2012.