LAHORE, Jan 15: Except for the Pakistan People’s Party, which cautiously welcomed the announcement, almost all major political parties expressed reservations on Tuesday to the appointment of Justice Irshad Hasan Khan (retired), the former chief justice of Pakistan, as the new chief election commissioner.

Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy chief, said the opposition parties had been demanding that the CEC should be appointed with national consensus and that the Election Commission should made independent and autonomous. Fair elections, he said, could not be imagined without such a commission and an impartial government.

He said the opposition was not reassured by the appointment of Justice Khan and recalled that it had been demanding that the important post should go to a person whose integrity was above board. The Nawabzada, who also heads the Steering Committee of the All Parties Conference, said even otherwise the commission had had a dubious credibility. He said all political parties had been questioning the fairness of the last local polls.

Local PPP leaders, however, said the appointment of the CEC was a healthy sign. They hoped that the remaining members of the commission, too, would be appointed soon.

Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan’s deputy secretary general Fareed Ahmad Piracha said major political parties should have been taken into confidence before the appointment. He also said the government should have appointed a person who could bring credibility to the office. He said Justice Khan’s appointment was inappropriate for the reason that as chief justice he had provided relief to the present government.

Tehmina Daultana, a central leader of the Pakistan Muslim League, said the fact that Justice Khan had taken oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order made his credibility questionable. Bias, she said, could always be alleged if elections were supervised by such a person. Her party, she said, had been demanding under the banner of the ARD that the CEC should enjoy universal credibility.