Election Commission of Pakistan is ‘always ready for elections’: Dr. Sikandar Sultan Raja
ISLAMABAD/LAHORE, June 01 (SABAH): Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dr. Sikander Sultan Raja on Wednesday said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is “always ready for elections” as he stressed it will continue to make decisions without fear.
“The election commission makes its decisions fearlessly and it will continue to do so. If anyone is displeased by or disagrees with the decisions, it’s their problem,” he said during an informal talk with reporters following the administration of oath to two new members of the ECP. He was asked to respond to allegations of bias against the electoral watchdog.
The CEC said that “everyone is our friend” and the ECP makes decisions according to the law and Constitution.
He said that the ECP will hold elections whenever the government will ask for fresh elections. The CEC said the task of ECP is to hold unbiased polls and without census delimitations of constituencies cannot be done. He added that results of May 2021 elections were published as per the census of 2017 and ECP started working on new delimitations of the constituencies after the results of census.
ECP Chief went on to say that special amendment was made for the 2018 elections and delimitations of constituencies. Government wants the implementation of digital census and with its results by December 2022, delimitations of constituencies can be made on time.
To a question about why the ECP had not made any progress on the resignations of PTI lawmakers — who had walked out of the National Assembly session ahead of the election of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, with party leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi announcing the PTI MNAs were resigning en masse — the CEC replied that former deputy speaker Qasim Suri had not referred the case to the ECP.
In reply to a question about the foreign funding case, he said the case proceedings were under way. “It is necessary to give an opportunity to all parties for clarification,” he said.
Earlier, the CEC administered the oath to two new members of the ECP.
Justice (retd) Ikramullah Khan was sworn in as the ECP member from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Babr Hassan Bharwana as the member from Punjab.
Later, PTI leader and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry railed against the ECP over delays in notification of members on reserved seats in the Punjab Assembly that had fallen vacant earlier this month after a total of 25 PTI dissident lawmakers were de-seated for backing PML-N’s Hamza Shehbaz in the Punjab chief minister’s election in April.
Speaking to the media in Lahore, Fawad Chaudhry said by not notifying the members, the “ECP has practically suspended Article 224 of the Constitution, which is very clear and states that once a member on a reserved seat is disqualified, the next person [in order of precedence] from the party list [of the candidates] is automatically notified”.
Fawad Chaudhry said it had been more than a week since the members on reserved seats were de-seated, but the ECP was yet to notify new members on the vacant seats.
He said once new members were notified on the seats, Hamza would lose his majority and this was why there was a delay.
“So the entire system is now working to keep an illegitimate man on the chief minister’s position,” Fawad Chaudhry added. “And this has led to a crisis.”
He also questioned whether the ECP, in its current shape, as nominated by Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Raja Riaz, be able to make any moral decisions.
“Who will accept this ECP?” he questioned, adding that it had to be replaced. “How can you hold an election with this ECP?”
The PTI leader also said the PTI was ready to sit and talk with the PML-N and PPP — the two major parties in the current coalition government — to discuss the terms and framework for new elections.