Cases against candidates put spanner in ECP works
Court cases are pending against candidates contesting July 25 general election from 108 constituencies. Most of the cases are pending in the Sindh province.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) yesterday informed that printing of ballot papers for over 89 constituencies of the National Assembly and provincial assemblies had been stopped due to high court cases in Sindh while the overall printing of ballot papers had entered final phase.
It is obviously a worrying matter for the ECP as the polling activity is time-barred, whereas millions of ballot papers were yet to be printed, subject to the Sindh High Court judgements.
Never before in Pakistan’s electoral history, such large number of cases landed in the courts ahead of elections: 38 cases relate to the National Assembly and 51 to the provincial assemblies. It goes without saying that printing of ballot papers and then timely transportation to the respective constituencies is a time-taking process.
Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Muhammad Raza chaired a meeting of the Election Commission, which was attended by all wings of the commission. The forum was given briefing on the state of preparations for the nationwide electoral exercise on July 25.
The meeting was apprised of the status of various related measures, including monitoring, voter education, result management system and result transmission system and provision of election material to relevant polling stations, provision of voter data, deployment of security personnel at polling stations and facilities to be extended to media and international observers.
Moreover, briefing was given to the meeting on training of the polling staff and other matters. The ECP expressed satisfaction over the state of preparedness made so far.
A few days back, the chief election commissioner had expressed concern over reprinting of ballot papers, following disqualification of some candidates and a few others, allowed to contest elections, as ballot papers printing was costly.