August 21, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Saani 11,1423

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 20: Chief Election Commissioner on Tuesday asked the government to amend the Representation of Peoples Act to restore the facility of covering candidates and allow the candidates to submit party certificate till the last date for the withdrawal of the candidatures.

The Election Commission had received complaints from the political parties that the amended Representation of People Act had made it difficult for the candidates to file their nomination papers.

It was complained that the amended law had made it mandatory that the candidate should file a declaration about his party affiliation at the time of filing of nomination papers along with a certificate from the political party showing that he was a party candidate from the constituency.

An announcement by the Election Commission, said that the CEC Justice Irshad Hasan Khan had taken cognizance of the difficulties faced by the political parties and had recommended the president to immediately make appropriate legislation for the redress of the grievances for the political parties so that the requisite certificate might be submitted before the last date fixed for the withdrawal of candidatures.

Raja Zafarul Haq of PML(N) had written a letter to the CEC complaining that the new procedure for filing of nomination papers required every candidate to submit certificate from his political party stating that he was the nominee of that particular party.

It was further pointed out that previously, the procedure was that the parties used to submit certificate for allocation of party symbol to candidate after acceptance of their nomination papers and before publication of final list of candidates.

The complainant said that under the new procedure, if papers of a candidate, whom political party had issued a certificate were rejected then that party loses the opportunity to field a candidate from that constituency.

The PML representative had objected to the new procedure and had requested that the previous procedure which was adopted after a long experience of several elections be restored under which parties should be allowed to submit certificate of nomination in respect of candidate till publication of the final list of candidates accepted to contest elections from that constituency.

The CEC also took notice of the reported amendment in the Punjab Local Government Ordinance, 2001, allowing Nazims and Naib Nazims to contest elections without tendering resignation from their respective offices.

The CEC directed the Punjab government to immediately withdraw the reported legislation to ensure fair and transparent forthcoming elections.