Pakistan’s election regulatory body alarmed by electoral reforms bill

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has expressed its reservations over a bill passed by the National Assembly to reform the country’s electoral system, reported the local media on Wednesday.
“The extent of the ECP’s concern over the new electoral reforms bill can be gauged from the fact that ... it does not support 28 of the total 62 proposed amendments,” Dawn said in a news report.
The issue was taken up in a meeting chaired by the country’s chief election commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja.
It was pointed out during the meeting that the ECP had recorded its objections to the bill, though its observations were ignored by the relevant parliamentary committee.
“The ECP ... fears the proposed amendments will dilute its constitutional powers and shift to NADRA [National Database Registration Authority] which is part of the federal government and not an independent body like the ECP,” Dawn reported.
According to a document compiled by the country’s election regulatory authority for internal circulation, the ECP maintains it is not possible to give voting rights to overseas Pakistanis in the absence of a parliamentary legislation.
It has also objected to the use of electronic voting machines until their performance and accuracy were established and it became clear they could be employed to conduct free and fair elections.
ECP officials have also refused to support the idea of delimiting constituencies based on the number of votes instead of population density as stated in the constitution.
Other than that, the electoral body has rejected an amendment which seeks to use NADRA’s data of registered IDs as electoral roll.
“ECP says the proposed amendment seeks to give the right of correction in the electoral roll to NADRA by taking it away from ECP which is mandated by the constitution to make any correction in the rolls as and when required,” the newspaper added.
Pakistan’s election commission is an independent, autonomous and permanent constitutional body that organizes federal and provincial elections.
It is also responsible for delimitation of constituencies and preparation of electoral rolls, according to Pakistan’s constitution.