ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is set to announce on Wednesday (today) its reserved judgement on petitions seeking disqualification of ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Senator Faisal Vawda over alleged concealment of his dual nationality at the time of contesting the National Assembly election on a Karachi seat in the 2018 general elections.

A three-member ECP bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja will also hold hearing of the long-delayed and much-hyped foreign funding case against the PTI, besides taking up the issue of local government elections in Islamabad.

The ECP had reserved its judgement on petitions seeking Mr Vawda’s disqualification on Dec 23 last year. The ECP bench had during the last hearing given Mr Vawda the last chance to defend himself and explain his position.

The ECP judgement will come at a time when political temperatures are high in the country and the opposition parties are gearing up for a decisive movement against the present set-up under the PTI, both inside and outside parliament. Political experts believe that the ECP judgement would definitely have an impact on the country’s future political scenario.

The petitions argued that Mr Vawda was a dual national at the time of filing his nomination papers to contest the 2018 general election. Mr Vawda submitted his nomination papers to the ECP on June 11, 2018 and had allegedly applied for renunciation of his US nationality days after that.

Qadir Khan Mandokhel, Mian Faisal and Mian Asif Mehmood subsequently filed petitions with the ECP, seeking Mr Vawda’s disqualification.

During the last hearing, Barrister Moeed, the counsel for Mr Vawda, had submitted the senator’s birth certificate to the ECP, stating that his client was born in California and was a US citizen by birth.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2022