ISLAMABAD - The persisting deadlock between government and Opposition on the appointment of new Chief Election Commissioner forced the Committee Chairman Syed Khurshid Shah to put off the meeting for Tuesday (today) so that stakeholders could agree on some common name.Meanwhile, sources in the main Opposition party in the Parliament, PML-N which has five out of six Opposition members in the 12-member committee was in no mood to get into some back channel interaction with government to evolve consensus on some common person acceptable to all the stakeholders as new Chief Election Commissioner of the country.Constitutional experts commenting on the given situation said that Constitution as well as statutes of the Committee is silent in case of persistent deadlock between the two sides with no party going to give in within the given timeframe of 14 days after receiving the separate lists of candidates by Leader of the House and Leader of Opposition to the Committee.Some legal and Constitutional minds are of the view that in case of deadlock and parties failing to agree on any single name out of the lists given by Prime Minister and Leader of Opposition within 14 days after receiving these lists then someone could move the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice would decide on his own from the lists of candidates forwarded to the Committee by Prime Minister and Leader of Opposition. The 14 days time is going to lapse on June 7th as following the submission of the three-member list by the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Leader of Opposition submitted the list of three potential candidates to the Committee on May 24th.Sources in PML-N informed The Nation that Leader of Opposition Ch. Nisar Ali Khan would not enter into consultation with Treasury on the subject through backdoor channels and would stick to the names forwarded by him while according to some insiders in the PPP, the senior party leadership had expressed serious reservations on all the three candidates for the slot presented by PML-N.To break this impasse, PPP leadership had made a smart move during the previous meeting of the Committee when Chairman of the Committee Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khurshid Shah withdrew the name of Justice (Retd) Zahid Qurban Alvi saying that Alvi has expressed his non-availability due to personal reasons and said that Prime Minister would be asked to forward a fresh name in this connection.Sources in the party said that by withdrawing the name the party has carved out an opening to bring in a consensus candidate after entering into consultation with the Opposition through backdoors and at the same time they would count the 14 days mandated time from the date PM Gilani would make a fresh nomination.

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