CCI meet paves way for timely general elections

ISLAMABAD: The last hitch to holding of the 2018 general elections as per the schedule has been removed.

The Council of Common Interests (CCI) held a session with Prime Minister Shahid Khakan Abbasi and was attended by all the chief ministers.

After the session, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) announced to support the constitutional bill to pave the way for the delimitation of constituencies based on provisional results of the population census 2017 after the Sindh government conditionally agreed on it in the meeting of the CCI.

“We will support the bill to hold the elections in time in 2018. Though the government delayed accepting the PPP demand of presenting the delimitation of constituencies in the CCI meeting, it is better late than never,” said leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Khurshid Shah said.

After the CCI meeting, National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq summoned a meeting of the parliamentary parties’ heads on Wednesday to decide about the immediate approval of the bill in the parliament.

Shah said that the government accepted the PPP demand to take up the issue in the CCI meeting as PPP stance was constitutional and in the public interests. He said the PPP always adopted constitutional and public interests stance that would increase the prestige of the constitutional and democratic institutions. He said that the government has taken a positive step.