ISLAMABAD - The Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms is likely to hold its maiden meeting in the first week of August to elect its chairman and draw terms of reference for its working.
The chairman of the 33-member committee will be from ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), which has the largest share in the committee with eight members from both the houses. Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is considered a strong contender for the slot of chairman, but the party leadership is also considering the name of Minister for Science and Technology Zahid Hamid for the slot because he is the man looking after all the legal and constitutional matters and is de facto law minister, a source in the government informed, adding that the chances of Dar to assume the office of chairman of the committee are slim because of his own heavy burden of work in handling the financial matters.
Sources further informed that the government wanted to make the body functional before Eid, but as the nominations of 11 members from upper house of the Parliament came late, so it would now not be possible to hold the inaugural session of the committee before Eid and the committee would most likely meet in the first week of August.
According to the resolution adopted by the National Assembly regarding the constitution of the committee and its mandate, the committee would have to complete the task of coming up with electoral reforms recommendations within three months period to the Parliament and then both the houses after threadbare discussion on it would go for formal legislation on the subject.
Earlier, the major political parties in the Parliament slashed down their share in the committee to accommodate the smaller parties in the Parliament, which otherwise could not make their way to the committee, to make the body more representative in nature.
Right now ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) has eight members in the committee, Pakistan People’s Party, five, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, three, Muttahida Quami Movement, Jamiat-I-Ulema-I-Islam (Fazl) and FATA, two each, while rest of the parties including Awami National Party, Quami Watan Party, Balochistan National Party (Awami), Pakistan Muslim League, Awami Muslim League, Pakhtunkhawa Milli Awami Party and other smaller parties have one member each in the body.
According to the notification, the ruling PML-N members included Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Senator Malik Muhammad Rafique Rajwana, Zahid Hamid, Anusha Rehman Khan Advocate, Lt Gen (Retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, Murtaza Javed Abbasi, Abdul Hakeem Baluch and Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry.
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the main opposition party, nominated Syed Naveed Qamar, Shazia Mari, Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, Senator Mian Raza Rabbani and Senator Farooq Hamid Naek.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) nominated Shafqat Mehmood, Dr Shireen Mazari and Dr Arif Alvi.
Mutahida Quami Movement will be represented by Dr Farooq Sattar and Senator Col (Retd) Tahir Mashhadi. JUI-F nominated the names of Senator Talha Mahmood and Naeema Kishawar.
Syed Ghazi Ghulab Jamal and Senator Hilalur Rehman would represent FATA members in the committee.
The parties with slim representation in the Parliament would be given one seat each in the committee including Abdul Rahim Mandokhail from PkMAP, Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao from Quami Watan Party, Ejazul Haq from PML-Z, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed from Awami Muslim League, Sahibzada Tariq Ullah from JI, Senator Haji Mohammad Adeel from ANP, Usman Khan Tarakai from Awami Jamhuri Ittehad Pakistan, Ghulam Murtaza Khan Jatoi of National Peoples Party, Ghaus Bux Khan Mahar of PML-Functional, Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed from PML-Q and Senator Mir Israrullah Khan Zehri of BNP-A.