June 26, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 10, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 25: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto has expressed dissatisfaction over the Election Commission of Pakistan’s reply to her message and reminded Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Qazi Mohammad Farooq of his promise and his constitutional obligations regarding the holding of fair elections.

Ms Bhutto sent another letter to the ECP on Monday, reiterating the demand for voters’ lists in electronic format and asking the CEC to ensure free and fair elections so that “Pakistan can stand tall in the comity of nations as having made the transition to democracy by accepting true will of the people.”

Ms Bhutto’s second letter was delivered to the CEC in the office by MPA Amir Fida Piracha, coordinator of the party’s central election monitoring cell.

The letter was in response to the June 20 letter of the ECP to Ms Bhutto in reply to her June 16 letter on the issue of voters’ lists. Ms Bhutto had called for putting the voters’ list on the website of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and providing the list to the PPP in electronic format.

Ms Bhutto said: “The PPP has a different view and would like the ECP’s decisions reviewed.”

She said the PPP had found it impossible to verify voters’ list in hard copies in 45,000 centres across the country. Moreover, she said, reports indicated that the lists were not available in many display centres. Secondly, she said, with the generous money given by USAID for computerization of the electoral rolls, the political parties would like copies of electoral rolls both at preliminary and final stages. The law did not forbid the ECP from doing so, she added.

“Voters need to know where to go to cast their votes … We would like any changes made to the location of polling stations and the change of the area assigned to a polling station posted on the web page,” she writes.

Ms Bhutto said the law also did not prevent the ECP from providing draft electoral rolls to political parties. She expressed concern that more than 27 million voters had not been entered in the electoral rolls on the grounds that they did not have computerised identity cards.

“The PPP asks that judicial discretion be exercised by the ECP on the side of the framers of the constitution and the internationally recognised right of universal right to vote. An election with one-third of the voters debarred from voting would not be fair. Kindly take steps to rectify this”, the letter says.

Meanwhile, PPP’s secretary-general Jehangir Badar announced that the last date for submitting applications for party tickets for the next National Assembly and provincial assemblies elections had been extended till July 1.

Mr Badar said Ms Bhutto would preside over a meeting of the party’s parliamentary board to finalise and shortlist the candidates in London in July.