As house count ends, voter list cross checks begin

Several areas were disturbed for two days so workers failed to complete house count.

KARACHI:

The workers of the Election Commission of Pakistan who were scheduled to complete the house count by Monday, failed to meet the deadline given the shut down in the city.

Several residents took to the streets against the killings of Hazaras in Quetta through Sunday and most of Monday. Since several neighbourhoods were inaccessible, the field workers have yet to count the houses in them.

According to an election commission official, the areas where workers could not work included Malir, Khokhrapar, Gulshan-e- Iqbal, North Karachi, Burnes Road, Korangi, Sharae Faisal,  North Nazimabad and Saddar.

“Out of the six enumerators, working under my supervision, only one called me to inform that he has completed his work, while rest could not even make it to the field,” said Ahmed Mukhtiar, a senior supervisor in PECHS.

“I have prepared the initial progress report and would submit it to our assistant registration officer, who will then dispatch it to the registrar officer,” he said.

The door-to-door verification of voters’ lists started on the directives of the Supreme Court on January 10. According to the schedule issued by the provincial election commission, the first four days (from January 10 to January 14) were fixed for house counting. The verification of electoral rolls is set to begin from today.

“We are working seven days a week without taking any day off,” provincial election commissioner Mehboob Anwar told The Express Tribune. “Our routine work has partially been affected in the last two days.” The voter verification phase will begin today as scheduled, and the house count will happen simultaneously, he explained.

Another enumerator, Abdul Ghani, who lives in Korangi, said that he tried to go to Malir on Sunday, but since the roads were deserted and public transport was thin, he returned home. He tried again on Monday, but his senior officer asked him to return given the tensed situation. “There are around 1,200 votes registered in my block, and I have verified around 750 in the past three days,” he said.



Election commissioner district South Wasim Jafferi had also received few reports from the registration officers in his district, but the reports were not consolidated. “We would have completed the task today but the strikes distributed our work,” he complained.

During the first phase, around 60 to 65 per cent of the field work has been completed, the provincial commissioner added.

In Karachi’s five districts, there are 11,300 enumerators, 3,216 supervisors, 197 assistant registration officers and five registration officers, who are now in the process of compiling their progress report to the election commission within a couple of days.

JI complains to ECP

Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Karachi, Muhammad Hussain Mehenti has written a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner Fakruddin G Ibrahim in which he has expressed his concerns over the ongoing process of voters’ verification in the absence of army and FC personnel.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, Mehenti said that the verification process of electoral rolls has once again been hijacked by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). “The Supreme Court ruling is being violated, as workers of the party in the guise of enumerators are verifying the electoral rolls,” he claimed.

The JI demanded the enumerators be provided a permission letter and photo ID card along with army or FC personnel. The results of the verification should be advertised in the print and electronic media, he demanded.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2013.