The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has said that the army would not have a role in the transmission of election results, the responsibility for which would remain with presiding officers, and stressed that the commission had complete control of the electoral exercise.

“The army will only provide security in accordance with the Constitution and will have nothing to do with the conduct of elections.” —ECP secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Muhammad

The ECP secretary has also rejected the claims that the army had been given extraordinary powers in connection with the elections.

He insists that the control of elections remained with the ECP, adding that polling staff has been appointed and trained by the ECP, scrutiny of nomination papers was conducted by returning officers drawn from the judiciary, ballot papers were printed by the ECP, a polling scheme was prepared by the returning officers and so on.

Nevertheless, the ECP appears to be in a fix as it has over 100 cases involving nomination of candidates for National and provincial assemblies still pending in courts of law, meaning the printing of ballot papers for those constituencies has been put on hold, but vows to get things done on time.

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