December 03, 2007	Monday	Ziqa'ad 22, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Dec 2: The Election Commission will meet on Monday to consider applications of 40 political parties for election symbols. “Some 40 political parties have applied for the election symbol and there is no dispute as the parties which took part in the 2002 polls have applied for the same symbols,” Election Commission Secretary Kunwar Mohammad Dilshad told Dawn on Sunday.

He said the applications would be examined in accordance with the Political Parties Order, 2002, and parties which had not conducted inner-party election would get symbols.

He said the parties which did not meet other requirements, like providing lists of offices and office-bearers, copies of manifesto and audited statements of accounts would also not be allotted symbols.

He said symbol not included in the list prescribed under sub-rule (1) of Rule 9 of the Representation of the People (Conduct of Election) Rules would not be included.

He said that a candidate nominated by a party for a constituency would be allotted the symbol reserved for that party.

Answering a question about the mechanism to resolve a dispute over a symbol between components of an alliance, he said if a political party met the relevant requirements it might be allotted a symbol for all its candidates if it sent their list to the EC on time. He said a political party would get preference for a symbol if it had been allocated to it before it entered into an alliance with other parties in an earlier election.

In case the same symbol was allotted to a combination of political parties in the last election and component parties apply for the same symbol, the allotment of that symbol would be decided by lots.

The Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians, formed by the PPP in 2002 for the purpose of complying with electoral rules governing political parties, again applied for the arrow as its election symbol, Nazir Dhoki of the PPP Election Cell said.

APP adds: The EC said it was preparing CDs of the electoral rolls which would soon be made available to candidates. Talking to a private TV news channel, Kunwar Dilshad said currently the commission charged Rs2 per page under Article 19 for providing electoral rolls to candidates. He said it would cost a candidate about Rs4,000 to 5,000.

About an allegation relating to the voters’ list issue levelled by PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, he said the commission had been charging candidates for rolls since 1970s.