ISLAMABAD - The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is waiting for government’s nod to start the process of procuring 300,000 electronic voting machines (EVMs) for 2018 general elections.

According to the sources, procurement of 300,000 EVMs is expected to cost Rs30 billion to the national exchequer.

The prime minister has yet to give a go ahead to the ECP to start the process of procurement.

Interestingly, the entire process is becoming cumbersome because of its direct link with electoral reforms process, which has remained in a limbo.

On the other hand, the ECP secretary on April 4th wrote a letter to the National Assembly speaker through the National Assembly secretary requesting to expedite the process of electoral reforms.

The letter reads that since the General Elections, 2018 is fast approaching the commission therefore has to undertake 15 tasks well before the expiry of the term of the assembly.

Among these tasks are delimitation/ re-description of constituencies, revision/ update of electoral rolls, enlistment of political parties, appointment and training of DROs, ROs, AROs and polling staff, preparation of list of polling stations and list of polling personnel and finalisation of codes of conduct for political parties, security, polling personnel and media.

The ECP secretary, while citing Section 14 of the Draft Election Law 2017 said that the Election Commission shall need at least six months before the general elections to prepare a comprehensive action plan.      

He also expressed apprehensions that in case of delay in enactment of new Election Act by the parliament, timely completion of the action plan could become a huge challenge for the ECP, impacting quality of elections.

The ECP secretary said that the parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms in its meeting held on 20th December, 2016, had presented the Draft Election Act 2017 and provided copies thereof to all members of the parliament and other stakeholders.

He said that the ECP had made all out efforts to assist the parliamentary committee by providing draft legislative proposals, comparative statements of the existing and proposed legislation, modalities for introduction of electoral technology and international best practices in respect of the Unified Election Laws.