ISLAMABAD, June 28: The Election Commission of Pakistan will start making arrangements for general elections in 2007 with the launching of the process for preparation of fresh voters’ list from July 1.

A senior official told Dawn on Wednesday that the new computerised identity cards would be a pre-condition for registration of voters and for polling.

He said that the existing lists would not be updated. “The condition of Nadra cards itself means that the voters’ list will be prepared afresh and the existing lists have become void,” he said.

He said the election commission had been granted powers of first class magistrates to all district registration officers who would act as assistant election commissioners at the district level. A notification has been issued in this regard, he said.

He said that the district registration officers’ powers had been enhanced because they have to co-opt with teachers and patwaris for the preparation of voters’ lists, adding that they would be able to take action if they did not cooperate with them.

Similarly, their judicial powers would also enable the DROs to take action against political leaders who provided any wrong information or false vote registration when they filed bulk lists for registration.

The DROs, he said, could award up to a three-month jail term for providing wrong information.

The government has increased allocations for the ECP by about 150 per cent to Rs1.2 billion for the next year against the current year’s estimates of Rs467 million.