ISLAMABAD  -  Partially revising the presidential election schedule in pursuance of the Supreme Court's order, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has changed the polling date from August 6 to July 30, the coming Tuesday.
The commission has also ordered the printing of 1,200 ballot papers for the presidential poll while 24 candidates have filed nomination papers for the election.
The date for scrutinising the nomination papers (July 26) as well as the deadline for receiving nomination papers (July 24) have been kept unchanged in the new schedule. Previously, the withdrawal of candidature/final list of poll candidates was fixed at July 29, which has been revised to July 27.
The decision was taken following the ECP's consultation meeting between Chief Election Commissioner Justice (r) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim and members Justice (r) Riaz Kayani, Justice (r) Roshan Essani, Justice (r) Shahzad Akbar Khan and Justice (r) Fazlur Rehman. The CEC had chaired the meeting from Karachi through teleconferencing.
Sharing his views on the SC order on the election date, Fakhruddin said, the ECP has complied with the court orders in letter and spirit. "I had already made it plainly clear that we would change the polling date (for presidential election) only on the directions of the Supreme Court," he told this correspondent by phone. "And now that the court has ordered to do so, we've fully complied... Necessary instructions have been issued in this regard," he added.
Last Tuesday, the ECP had issued presidential election schedule to fix the August 6 as polling day. The next day, the government cited the 'religious engagements' of legislators to request ECP to change this date and hold the presidential poll at an early date. The commission refused to change the date saying the request was not based on justifiable grounds. But, entertaining a petition filed by the PML-N stalwart Raja Zafarul Haq, the SC on Wednesday ordered the ECP to conduct the presidential election on July 30.
Following the court verdict, the ECP sent letters to the registrars of the high courts informing them about the change in presidential polling date, to be communicated to the chief justices of HCs who are the presiding officers for the presidential poll.
Furthermore, an ECP official said 1,200 ballot papers would be printed considering that the present strength of the electoral college for presidential election stands at somewhere around or over 1,090 out of the total 1,136 lawmakers, and the printing would be completed by the weekend.
He said the number of votes to be counted would be around or over 664 because six votes cast by the members of Punjab Assembly and those of two votes cast by Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assemblies' members would be equivalent to one vote in order to bring parity in representation during the voting process between the three assemblies and Balochistan Assembly that has lowest strength of 65 votes. Punjab Assembly has 372 votes, Sindh Assembly 130 and KP Assembly 124.
Meanwhile, of the 24 nomination papers filed, nine candidates filed 12 nomination papers at the registrar office Islamabad High Court, seven candidates each filed their nominations at the registrars' offices of Lahore and Sindh High Courts (in Karachi) while one candidate filed his nomination paper at the Peshawar High Court registrar office. No candidate filed any nomination paper at Balochistan High Court (Quetta) for the presidential poll.
The notable presidential poll candidates include PML-N candidate Mamnoon Hussain (three nominations), PPP’s Raza Rabbani (seven nominations), PTI’s Justice (r) Wajihud Din Ahmed and Iqbal Zafar Jhagra (two nominations). The nomination papers of 16 candidates were filed without the endorsement of proposers and seconders.