ISLAMABAD: The Election Com-mission of Pakistan finally woke up on Friday and declared the presidential order on Senate polls in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas “vague and self-contradictory”.

The commission, which had postponed Thursday’s polling on four Fata seats, said sections 2, 3 and 4 of the presidential order were ambiguous, self-contradictory and violative of the law under which the election schedule had been announced.

In a notification, the ECP said the polling, in accordance with the law, had already commenced when the returning officer received the presidential order and postponed the polling under Section 22 of the Senate Elections Act, 1975.

Also read: Faced with failure in Fata, PML-N spoilt Senate race?

The commission formally endorsed the returning officer’s decision and said a new election date would be announced after anomalies were removed.

The notification was, however, as ambiguous as the presidential order as it did not explain who will remove the anomalies.

The commission terms presidential order utterly ambiguous, self-contradictory and derogatory to the law

Barrister Afzal Hussain, an expert on electoral laws, told Dawn that the commission was yet to explain why it did not hold Senate elections for the Fata seats as per schedule in accordance with its mandate which was clearly defined in the Constitution.

He was of the opinion that the ECP should have rejected the presidential order because the schedule had already been announced and ballot papers printed under the law.

He said the late-night order had also allocated one seat each to seven tribal agencies and the eighth to the frontier region, thereby throwing validly nominated candidates from the agencies already having representation in the Senate out of the electoral race which was illegal and unconstitutional.

He said it was also not clear in the order how many ballot papers would be given to each of the 11 MNAs from Fata.

He was of the view that the order had enough flaws to be struck down by the court when a plea of Fata MNAs who form the electoral college was taken up for hearing.

Published in Dawn March 7th , 2015

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