ISLAMABAD: The Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms reviewed 73 electoral proposals, which were submitted before it. It has been decided to finalize the recommendations by next week and seek approval of the amendments in the Election Act from both houses of Parliament before the end of the term of the National Assembly.
The in-camera meeting of the Parliamentary Committee for Electoral Reforms was chaired by its Chairman and Economic Affairs Minister Sardar Ayaz Sadiq. Law Minister Azam Tarar, Dr. Fahmida Mirza, Commerce Minister Naveed Qamar, Senator Taj Haider, MNA Afzal Dhandla, Senator Manzoor Ahmed, Senator Kamran Murtaza and Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan and members of the committee attended the meeting.
Talking to the media after the meeting, Ayaz Sadiq rejected the possibility of banning any political party and said that there is no proposal to ban any party as the task of the committee is to carry out electoral reforms.
“We will review the contentious issues on Thursday besides drafting consensus proposals. Contentious issues that require further discussion will be reviewed on Monday.
Ayaz Sadiq said that there was a detailed discussion on the proposals regarding electoral reforms and effective proposals were considered for the transparent conduct of elections. He said that many works were done during the tenure of former Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, the committee is trying to fix the controversial decisions related to elections.
According to sources, it was suggested in the committee meeting that the presiding officer should be given specific time to compile the results and he should be held accountable for any delay in the process. It was suggested in the meeting that the presiding officer should be obliged to give a concrete reason for the delay in compiling the election results.
It was suggested in the meeting that the presiding officer will send a photocopy of the signed result to the returning officer and it was also suggested that the presiding officer be provided with high speed internet and smartphone. It was suggested in the meeting that polling agents should be allowed to carry camera phones.
It was also suggested to install CCTV cameras at every polling station booth as it will help in monitoring polling, counting and tabulation of results and the recording of the cameras can be used as evidence in case of complaints. . It was suggested that the candidate would also be able to get the video of any polling station by paying a fee. It was also suggested to increase the limit of election expenses of candidates of national and provincial assemblies. It was suggested that 40 lakh to 10 million rupees can be spent on the election campaign for the National Assembly seats and 20 lakh to 40 million rupees on the election campaign for the provincial assembly seats.
It was suggested in the meeting that action should be taken under criminal law against the presiding and reviewing officer for negligence. In the meeting, it was also considered to punish the election staff involved in election rigging from 6 months to 3 years. In the meeting, a proposal to decide on the violation of the code of conduct in 7 days instead of 15 days also came out.
It was suggested that the final list of polling staff be uploaded on the ECP website and the candidate would be able to challenge the posting of polling staff in the constituency within 10 days. It was also proposed to display the complete list of voters outside each polling station.
It was also suggested that security personnel would be on duty outside the polling station, but in case of emergency they could enter the polling station with the permission of the presiding officer.
