Opposition leader also wants ECP members to resign

Shah clarifies he is not promoting Imran’s stance

ISLAMABAD:

Days after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan said the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) provincial members have lost their moral authority, the National Assembly’s Leader of Opposition Khursheed Shah on Tuesday also asked the four ECP members to quit their offices.

“Members of the ECP should resign since their role [in the May 2013 polls] has become controversial,” Shah said on Tuesday while talking to reporters. However, he clarified that he is ‘not promoting Imran Khan’s stance’. “This is my own view,” he added. Shah had expressed the same views a few months back.

However, the opposition leader did not clarify if it was his personal demand or his party’s standpoint. Shah is a senior leader of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which is the second largest party in the National Assembly and the single largest party in Senate in terms of number of members.



Being the leader of opposition, his office has significant say in appointment of election chief and the four members of the ECP.

The incumbent four members of the ECP – all retired judges of the high courts from the four provinces – were appointed in 2012 for a period of five year. Shah’s party was ruling the centre at that time and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was in opposition.

Last general elections were organised by these members but by a different chief election commissioner (CEC), Justice Fakharuddin G Ebrahim. Ebrahim had resigned few months after the polls due to a controversy over the Supreme Court’s alleged intervention in scheduling the presidential election.  However, all the four members had opted to stay in their offices. The tenure of these members will end in June next year, unless they quit voluntarily. The ECP members have already made it clear in their Monday meeting with the incumbent CEC that they will not resign.

After a Lahore post-election tribunal announced its verdict for the NA-122 – the constituency from where former Speaker Ayaz Sadiq was elected – Imran Khan had pressed the members of ECP to quit. The PTI chief had threatened to stage another sit-in against the ECP to force its members to relinquish their posts.

Legally, the CEC and the ECP members cannot be removed before completion of their tenure unless a case of gross misconduct is proven in the Supreme Judicial Council, which is empowered to remove judges of higher judiciary.

“They get Rs800,000 salary and other perks. How can they leave those perks and privileges” Shah said in a taunting way. He said since the members have become controversial, the best way out is that they offer resignations voluntarily.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2015.