ISLAMABAD: PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari wants the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms to expedite its work and says the government-PTI accord on setting up a judicial commission will not address fundamental issues relating to elections.

There is a need for the multi-party parliamentary committee to expedite work on preparing recommendations and place draft constitutional amendments and a draft legislation before the parliament.

“The committee should complete its task within a defined timeline,” the former president said in a statement issued by the PPP Media Office on Wednesday.

He said the parliamentary committee had been set up to examine election-related articles of the constitution and laws and recommend suitable changes ending electoral malpractices before, during and after elections.

He suggested that the parliamentary committee should invite suggestions from the general public and stake-holders for arriving at a broad-based consensus for long lasting and durable solution of election-related issues.

“Wisdom is not the monopoly of one or a few political parties. Truth and wisdom emerges only as a result of discussion among a large number of stake-holders in which each lays claim to a bit of the reality. Various stake-holders and indeed the public at large also need to be involved in consultation process to finalise electoral reforms,” he said.

The PPP leader stressed the need for broad-based electoral reforms for the sake of political stability and for “an end to manipulated political transfer that has been the bane of Pakistan’s political landscape during the past over six decades”.

Commenting on the agreement between the ruling PML-N and the PTI on the formation of a judicial commission to investigate the charges of rigging in the 2013 general elections, the PPP co-chairman hoped that the commission would mark an end to confrontational and ‘dharna’ politics and pave the way for PTI lawmakers to play their role in the parliament, instead of on the streets.

“However, there is a pressing need for comprehensively addressing issues of election malpractices before, during and after elections with broad-based consensus of all political parties and stake-holders,” he added.

“Except for temporarily lowering political temperatures, the agreed judicial commission, being too little too late, unfortunately does not address fundamental issues in Pakistan’s electoral landscape,” Mr Zardari said.

He also called upon all political parties to forge consensus on the measures that need to be taken whether by way of amending the Constitution or adopting new legislation or taking purely administrative measures for ensuring free, fair and transparent elections that genuinely reflected the will of the people.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2015

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