ISLAMABAD - The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) holds an all important meeting today (Thursday) to decide on involving the army or paramilitary troops in the voters verification drive as well as discussing a host of other issues.
Considering the prevailing security situation, a decision in favour of involving the military or paramilitary troops during voters’ verification drive is expected in today’s meeting, ECP officials informed this newspaper.
The door-to-door drive for voters verification, as ordered by the Supreme Court, would be given a formal go ahead today. The verification drive will kick of in the coming days.
The Thursday’s meeting, according to the officials, carries a five-point agenda: decision on the involvement of military/paramilitary forces; discussion on constituencies delimitation in Karachi; progress review on voter lists: dual nationality issue; and complaints of irregularities in the recent by-elections.
Last week on Saturday, the Chief Election Commissioner Justice (Retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim had first disclosed to this correspondent about summoning the ECP’s today meeting for taking a decision on deploying army or rangers, as reported in The Nation on Sunday.
According to the ECP officials, the commission is in favour of engaging the army or paramilitary forces for maintaining law and order during the voters verification drive while it would make a choice whether to call regular army troops, Sindh Rangers or Frontier Corps (FC).
In case the Sindh Rangers or FC are called, a related request has to be sent to the Ministry of Interior, since both the paramilitary forces are under the administrative control of the interior ministry. And if the election commission decides on deploying the regular army personnel, the related request, to be directed to the General Headquarters, is to be routed through the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Under the constitutional provisions, all the concerned departments stand under obligation to cooperate with the electoral body in discharge of its responsibilities, wherever required.
In its judgement issued on this month’s fifth in “Verification of Votes in Karachi” case, the SC had ordered, “The Election Commission of Pakistan is directed to carry out proper and complete door-to-door verification in Karachi so as to ensure that no voter is disenfranchised or dislocated and all other discrepancies are rectified as early as possible.”
The SC Karachi Registry branch had ordered the election commission to carry out delimitation in Karachi in the “Karachi Law and Order case.”
The initiatives proposed by the Sindh’s Provincial Election Commission (PEC) regarding delimitation exercise would reportedly be discussed in the today’s meeting. All the political parties except Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) support delimitation of constituencies in Karachi.
During Saturday’s conversation with this scribe, the CEC Justice (r) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim had said, the concerns of MQM regarding delimitation of constituencies in Karachi would be addressed.
The progress on voters’ lists also likely to be discussed in the ECP meeting includes reviewing the cases of anomalies such as irregular entries (dead voters), bogus entries and erroneous registration of voters on the postal addresses. With exception to Karachi, the voter lists for the rest of the districts in the country are generally being maintained accurately, according to ECP officials. Presently, 84.36 million voters are registered with the ECP with the number expected to increase by one million till general elections.
Moreover, regarding the dual-nationality issue, the officials said, of the 16 lawmakers believed to be dual nationals, only one incumbent Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Engineer Javaid Iqbal, has not submitted his nationality affidavit. Three legislators, Syed Allauddin, Chaudhry Tassadduq and Maulana Qasim have submitted their oath statements with the ECP. Chaudhry Tassaduq quit his National Assembly membership due to his reported differences with the party but the speaker NA has not accepted his resignation.
The only senator in presumed dual nationals lot, Senator Salahuddin Dogar, has died while the remaining eleven lawmakers have resigned. They include Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi, Syed Tayyab Hussain, Dr Nadeem Ehsan, Fauzia Ejaz Khan, Sabeen Rizvi, Araish Kumar, Murad Ali Shah, Sadiq Ali Memon, Abdul Moid Siddiqui, Hassan Raza Taqvi and Raza Haroon
The ECP would de-notify the memberships of these legislators who did not comply with the SC orders to affirm on oath not being dual nationals, if ordered by the SC. Earlier this month, the election commission had sent the names of all the 16 legislators to the SC for further action.
In addition, nine bye-elections were held in different electoral constituencies of National and Provincial Assemblies on December 4, 2012. Reports of serious irregularities have surfaced during these polls, The ECP has instructed the respective PECs to submit reports about foul play during these polls. The issue would be taken up in the today’s meeting, reportedly.