History in the making: General elections on May 11

Presidency notifies the date; ECP will announce schedule on March 23.

ISLAMABAD:

The general election will be held on May 11, the Presidency announced on Wednesday, in a move that will mark the first democratic transition of power in Pakistan’s 66-year history.

The government and opposition are still wrangling over a caretaker administration which will now manage the run-up to elections as the country struggles with surging militant and sectarian violence, a burgeoning power crisis and an ailing economy.

“The president [Asif Ali Zardari] announced today that general elections to the National Assembly will be held on May 11,” his spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar told reporters.

On Wednesday, Punjab became the last provincial assembly to dissolve – setting the scene for probable provincial elections on May 11 as well – a practice adopted after the 1997 elections.

A notification issued by the president, however, only mentioned the election date for polls in the 342-member National Assembly, which was dissolved on March after completing a full five-year term.

Be that as it may, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), under the Constitution, will now announce a full schedule for the campaign. On Wednesday, ECP Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan said the commission will announce the election schedule on March 23.

Election authorities had already worked out a few schedules based on expected dates, a senior ECP official told The Express Tribune, adding that their the ongoing deadlock over the caretaker setup in the centre and Punjab would not affect planning for the schedule since all the assemblies have been dissolved.

He went on to add, however, that final candidates in the upcoming polls were expected to have less than three weeks of campaigning time due to the deadlock over the caretaker premier and delays in the dissolution of provincial assemblies.

The ECP also claims that it will be the first elections in which authorities would be carrying out a ‘meaningful’ scrutiny of nomination papers with the help of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and National Database Registration Authority (NADRA).

Nomination papers would be received from aspiring candidates till March 30 and their scrutiny would begin from March 31, said the ECP secretary. The scrutiny would continue for seven days. “The candidates could withdraw their nominations by April 18, while the final list of the candidates would be issued on April 19,” he added.

Once the list of contestants is finalised, the commission will begin printing ballot papers.

On the other hand, the ECP is also considering the approval of the election reforms package, which sought more autonomy for the ECP but was not adopted by the outgoing assembly,  through a reference to the new caretaker prime minister. The president would have to approve the bill in the form of an ordinance.

The commission had requested 30 days for the scrutiny of nomination papers in the reforms package. It had also sought administrative powers over all the officials performing election duty to ensure their neutrality.

However, since the legislation was not passed, the commission now faces an uphill task in the scrutiny of nomination papers within seven days, partly also due to the high volume of candidates and political parties contesting elections.

Sixty seats in the National Assembly are reserved for women and 10 for religious minorities. Under reforms introduced by the outgoing government, political parties can, for the first time, contest elections in the tribal regions. But there are no seats in the tribal belt reserved for women.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2013.