ISLAMABAD: After carrying out delimitation of constituencies, the Election Commission of Pakistan has finalised an initial list of 104 million voters for the upcoming general elections which will be put on display throughout the country on March 26 for the general public.

According to an official announcement here on Wednesday, the ECP has decided to set up 14,487 display centres across the country where the voters can check their names and those of their family members and other details, point out any discrepancy, seek correction or get their votes transferred from one place to another.

The commission will set up 7,928 display centres in Punjab, 2,585 in Sindh, 2,545 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), and 1,429 in Balochistan.

Parliamentarians continue formulating recommendations despite ECP non-cooperation

The list contains the names of 8.1 million new voters. The ECP has, however, not released the province-wise break-up of the voters. The data shows 21 per cent increase in the number of voters since the last general elections in 2013. It shows that nearly half of the country’s population is registered as voters — according to provisional results of the census held last year, the country’s population stands at 207.7 million.

The names of about 800,000 voters have been removed from the list that was used in the 2013 general elections, according to the ECP. The names of those persons have been deleted from the list who have died during the last five years as per official record of the National Database and Registration Authority, those who have acquired nationalities of other countries and those whose computerised national identity cards (CNICs) have been blocked by Nadra for various reasons.

In a message to the nation, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) retired Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza said that participation of youth in the democratic process was a must for future-making of the nation. He said people had a golden opportunity before the next elections to ensure that their votes were registered.

The ECP had last updated its voters list in October 2017, showing that the youth might decide the outcome of the 2018 general elections, as 42.4 million of the nearly 97 million registered voters (44pc) were aged between 18 and 35 years.

Delimitation

An ECP spokesman disclosed that the commission had so far received only 12 objections to its proposed constituencies after delimitation —11 from Punjab and one from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The ECP put on display the proposed new constituencies on March 5, asking the public to submit their objections within a month.

Meanwhile, the working group of the Parliamentary Committee on Delimitations on Wednesday continued formulating its recommendations despite non-cooperation of the ECP which had termed the formation of the committee a “useless exercise” and its proceedings “interference” in the commission’s “mandate”.

Members of the working group, headed by Privatisation Minister Daniyal Aziz, once again expressed their reservations over the delimitation exercise carried out by the ECP.

Mr Aziz announced that they would again meet on March 26, which would be the last meeting after which they would submit their final report to the main committee headed by National Assembly Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi.

Last week, the ECP through a written “order” signed by all its four members and the CEC had informed the parliamentary working group that they were not bound to implement recommendations of the committee as “the law does not provide any other mechanism except the filing of representations before the ECP” through public petitions. The ECP officials urged the parliamentarians to use the legal and constitutional course and file objections in the form of petitions.

The ECP order said: “The commission respects the parliament and parliamentary committees but as the delimitation of constituencies is the sole mandate of the ECP under the Constitution and law, therefore representations, if any, by aggrieved person can be filed in the manner provided under the law and rules, as the law and rules do not permit any other form of representations. Therefore, it is expected that no interference in the mandate of the ECP will be made by any committee or any other institution.”

The committee members had protested over the ECP’s act, but decided that they would finalise their recommendations in any case and send it to the commission as they were the main stakeholders.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2018