ISLAMABAD, April 2: Chief Election Commissioner Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar on Saturday emphasized the need of fairness, transparency and impartiality for conducting the forthcoming Local Government Elections in the country.

He was presiding over an important meeting to review the registration work and on-going preparations for conducting the local government elections to be held in July, 2005.

The impact of these elections would reflect on the strengthening of the democratic process and democratic institutions in the country, he said.

He also directed the officers of Election Commission to ensure that no person should remain unregistered who came with an application for his registration as an elector.

Maximum participation of people in the democratic process is the basis of strengthened democratic institutions, he said, and disclosed that the entire world was looking towards the conducting of the local government elections in Pakistan, which would be held in two phases and be completed by August, 2005.

The CEC also asked to remove flaws experienced in the previous local government elections, so that the process could be improved transparently and in a purposeful manner.

He also directed the field officers to submit their proposals for the improvement of procedures and system, keeping in view the ground realities.

He also said the commitment and the integrity of the officers of the Election Commission should be undoubted and above board.

The Chief Election Commissioner directed the provincial election commissioners to complete the work of repairing of ballot boxes immediately so that they could be available on polling day.

He also directed that polling schemes should be prepared immediately while emphasis should be on provision of facility to the electors by establishing polling stations at easily accessible venues.

Proposals should be submitted for eradication or mitigation of difficulties of the polling staff, he said, while logistic arrangements should be reviewed

purposefully and allocation of symbols should be made without any error and

for this purpose necessary amend-

ments in rules be carried out, he directed.

Earlier Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad, secretary, Election Commission, apprised the meeting that more than 64 million eligible voters in the country would caste their votes while 350,000 ballot boxes were available with the commission.

He also said that almost 700,000

polling personnel were being appointed for conducting of these elections and

necessary arrangements for the elec-tions of all three tiers had been completed.