Staff at election offices in Hyderabad and Sukkur advise candidates to download forms. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
SUKKUR/ HYDERABAD/ KARACHI:
The nomination papers, which were scheduled to be issued on November 9 (Saturday) according to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), did not make it to any of the offices in Karachi, Sukkur or Hyderabad.
Similarly, it was decided that deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners would be appointed as the district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs) but no notifications were issued till Saturday.
“We have almost finished our homework and prepared the public notices to brief people about the aims and objectives of the election and its schedule,” Dr Saifur Rehman, district Central deputy commissioner, told The Express Tribune. “But since our notification is still pending, we cannot issue the nomination papers.”
Many people waited for hours in front of the ECP office and deputy commissioners’ offices. “We have been waiting for the last three hours. The government should have appointed the ROs a day earlier. No one is giving us a proper response as to when and where we can get the nomination forms from,” said Juman Darwan, former union council Nazim. “The officials of the provincial election commission are not even willing to meet us.”
The director of provincial election commission, Najeeb Ahmed, however, said that November 9 was only for issuance of public notices to educate people about the election. Referring to the ECP’s schedule, he said that the nomination papers would be issued from November 10 to November 11.
“We cannot comment on who will be appointed as the RO. The election commission has issued notifications in Islamabad but we have yet to receive the copies,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sindh Election Commissioner SM Tariq Qadri told The Express Tribune that deputy commissioners would work as DROs and assistant commissioners as ROs in the province. He acknowledged the delay on part of the election commission in issuing notification of DROs and ROs.
Qadri said that the ROs would select the election staff from education and other departments. Regarding the election schedule, he said that the nomination papers would be available at the election commission office on November 11 and November 12. The list of contesting candidates will be displayed on November 13 and people will be able to submit their objections on the same day.
The scrutiny of papers will start from November 16 to November 17and appeal against acceptance and rejection of the nomination papers is to be filed on November 18 and November 19. The appeal will be disposed off on November 20 and 21. The date for withdrawal has been fixed for November 22 and final list of the candidates will be displayed on November 23 before the local government elections are held on November 27.
Option to download forms
Hundreds of candidates also lined up outside the offices of the deputy and assistant commissioners in Hyderabad’s ten districts on Saturday morning. After waiting for several hours, they were advised by the staff at the offices to download the forms from the ECP website. “The staff initially told us that the forms will be made available at the earliest. It was only in the afternoon that we were advised to get them from the website,” complained Jamshed Unar, one of the candidates outside the DC office in Hyderabad.
The assistant commissioner of City taluka, Naeem Sindhu, confirmed that the ROs have not been notified yet and that the nomination forms were also not available at their offices.
Candidates in Sukkur were also told to download the forms while stamp vendors in Ghotki beat the ECP to it by downloading the nomination forms and selling them at exorbitant prices. No DRO or RO was appointed in Larkana till the filing of this report.
Nomination forms were not available also in Jacobabad and other parts of Upper Sindh.
Sources said that delimitation in Sukkur would take three more days to be finalised.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 10th, 2013.
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the ecp doing their work to late as gap the old sin