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ISLAMABAD, Aug 1: The president has restored 10 special seats for the minorities, and dropped the idea of reserving 25 seats for technocrats in the National Assembly, reducing the number of proposed NA seats from 357 to 342.
The Conduct of General Elections Order (Fourth Amendment) Order 2002, issued on Thursday, provides that Senate’s elections will be held according to existing electoral college, as provided in the 1973 Constitution, and not as was proposed by the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB).
The law providing the long list of qualifications and disqualifications as enumerated in the Constitution and laws, has added a new provision, saying that a person will not be qualified to become a member of the parliament if “he has been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for having absconded by a competent court under any law for the time being in force.” The clause directly hits Ms Benazir Bhutto, who has been twice convicted under Section 31 of the NAB Ordinance for her failure to appear to defend herself in corruption cases.
The general seats for the National Assembly, which had been increased from 207 to 272 after delimitation of the constituencies in the light of census results, will remain unchanged. The proposal for reserving 60 seats for women has also been approved by the government.
The law, however, is silent about the tenure of the National Assembly and provincial assemblies. Under the 1973 Constitution, the term of the NA and the PAs is five years. The government, however, had proposed in its constitutional package to bring it to four years.
The joint electorate, however, will remain intact, allowing the minorities right of double vote, one for general seats and one for the special seats.
Christians will have four NA reserved seats, Hindus and person belonging to the scheduled castes four, and one for Sikh, Buddhist and Parsi communities, and one seat for Ahmadis.
After the introduction of joint electorate system, the government had announced to abolish reserved seats for the minorities.
The minorities, however, strongly protested and argued that if women had the right to contest for general seats and also for special seats, why could not this rule be extended to them as they stood no chance to win a seat from any general seat in a country whose 97.5 per cent population comprised of the Muslims.
The persons contesting on reserved seats for women and non-Muslims will be elected through proportional representation system of political parties lists of candidates on the basis of total number of general seats won by each political party in the provincial assembly.
The elections to the general seats for the National Assembly and provincial assemblies will be held on the system provided in the 1973 Constitution — direct election on the basis of single-member territorial constituencies.
A political party securing less than five per cent of the total number of general seats in the National Assembly will not be entitled to any reserved seat for women or non-Muslims.
PROVINCIAL SEATS: The seats for the provincial assemblies will now be 728, including 23 seats for minorities. Earlier, it had been proposed that the four provincial assemblies will have 758 seats, including 53 seats for technocrats.
The Punjab Assembly will consist of 372 seats, including 66 reserved seats for women and nine for minorities. Similarly, the Sindh Assembly will have the total strength of 167 members, including 29 seats for women and eight for minorities.
Balochistan Assembly will consist of 65 members, including 11 women and three minority members, and NWFP assembly will consist of 124 members, including 22 women and three minority members.
SENATE: The Senate will have 100 members, including 17 seats reserved for technocrats and Ulema, four each from every province and one from the federal capital.
The government has retained the existing electoral college for the Senate with the exception of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). The senators from Fata would now be elected on direct vote, an attempt to dispel the impression that Fata MNAs used to vote after being paid by the aspirants for the Senate seats.
TECHNOCRATS: The government has provided new definition of a technocrat.
The definition reads as: “Technocrat means a person who is holder of degree, requiring conclusion of at least sixteen years of education, recognized by the University Grants Commission or a recognized statutory body, as well as at least 20 years of experience, including a record of achievements at the national or international level.”
The Conduct of General Election (4th Amendment) Order 2002, will repeal Houses of Parliament and Provincial Assemblies Election Act 1977.
The senators will retire according to existing procedure provided in the 1973 Constitution, that half of the senators elected on general seats would retire on the expiry of first three years while the remaining half would retire after six years. The same formula would be applicable to other category of senators.
The People’s Representation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2002, enacted now states that the Returning Officer will have the powers to reject the nomination papers of any candidate on the basis of any information received from any source.
The law, spanning over 16 pages, has rewritten the existing Peoples’s Representation Act 1976, providing that polling stations shall be located in government buildings and where it was not available and improvised polling stations shall be set up on a public property.
The law provides that every political party would have to give a list of candidates for the seats reserved for the technocrats and women in order of priority.
SCRUTINY: The law also provides an amended procedure for scrutiny of nomination papers by the returning officers. The returning officers will now have the suo motu powers to reject the nomination papers of any candidate on the basis of information received from “any source.”
Under the law, every legislator — members of the National Assembly, Senate and provincial assemblies — would be required to submit return of election expenses within 30 days of the publication of the name of the returned candidate.
Similarly, every member of the parliament and provincial assemblies would be required to submit statement of his assets and liabilities which would be open to public scrutiny. Any citizen, desirous of looking into the statement of the legislators’ assets, would be entitled to see those on the payment of prescribed fee.
TRIBUNAL: The Election Tribunal has been vested with the power to initiate proceedings for the vacation of any seat on the basis of any material coming to its knowledge from any source or information laid before it showing that the returned candidate was defaulter of loan, taxes, government dues or utility charges or had submitted incorrect declaration of assets and liabilities of his own, spouse or his dependents.
The tribunal on its own motion, or otherwise, may call upon such candidate to show cause why his election should not be declared void, if satisfied that he was a defaulter, declare his election as void.
The law also provides that no person or party will affix hoarding or banners larger than the sizes prescribed by the Election Commission.
