Same-day polls for national, provincial legislatures unlikely: ECP

ECP secretary says since assemblies did not take oath on same day, they can't have polls on same day either.

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday ruled out the possibility of polling for national and provincial assemblies on the same day, saying that since the national and provincial assemblies had taken oath on different dates, thus their elections could not be held on the same day either.

Talking to reporters, the ECP Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan said that the constitutional tenure of the national assembly would be completed on March 16, 2013, whereas the constitutional tenure of the Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies would end on April 4, 6, 8 and March 27, 2013 respectively.

To a query, he said that without dissolving all the assemblies on the same day, polling for national and provincial assemblies could not be held on the same day. To another query, he said polling for national and provincial assemblies on the same day will lead to mix-up and confusion among voters, and could result in wastage of many ballots.

According to election experts, voters are not educated enough to correctly cast their votes in simultaneous polling for the national and provincial legislatures, thus if polling was held on the same day many illiterate electorates would waste their votes.

They said in the simultaneous polling every voter is issued two ballots, which are considerably long due to the number of contesting candidates, whose names figure on them. Similarly, two ballot boxes are placed in every polling station for the national and provincial assemblies.

However, political parties favouring the same day polling argue that the results of the one electoral exercise, say for the National Assembly, can't impact the outcome of the second for the provincial assemblies.

But, election experts believe that if the polling is held on different days for the two sets of legislatures, the results of the National Assembly, which will be held first, could have influence over the opinion of voters casting their ballots for the provincial assemblies.

Therefore, some political parties may have to face a disadvantage in the subsequent polling for provincial legislature. If separate polling is held, the party winning the first round will have an excellent edge to fare better in the second exercise as voters generally tend to tilt towards it.

According to a former senior official of ECP, the electoral exercise becomes exceedingly marathon if the same day polling is held. In the case of separate polling, the workload is scattered on two days, which facilitates the process as a whole, and relieves the ECP of massive pressure.

He said since the constitutional tenure of the national and provincial assemblies had to complete on different dates, thus the elections should also be held on different dates instead of simultaneously.