ISLAMABAD - The political slugfest yesterday saw another development, as Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) suggested parliament to approve legislation empowering it to announce a date for the general elections.
Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja has demanded this legislation from the parliament as the apex court had given date for elections in Punjab.
The chief of top elections body in separate letters to National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf and Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani has put forward this demand. In his letters, the CEC said that the conduct of elections is dependent upon the necessary arrangements to be made by the Commission to ensure that the standards of honesty, justness and fairness provided in Article 218(2) are met.
“The Commission, under the Constitution, is the sole arbiter to decide as to whether conducive circumstances exist to conduct the elections or not. This mandate is not subordinate to any authority,” the letters read.
The CEC suggested amendments in Sections 57(1) and 58 of the Election Act (2017) and has requested for these amendments to be presented in the parliament.
In view of the facts and reasons stated in the letter, he asked both the NA speaker and Senate chairman to be placed before the Parliament for adoption with the following amendments:
“Section 57(1) The Commission shall announce the date or dates of the General Elections by notification in the official gazette and shall call upon the constituencies to elect their representatives,” he said. He cited in a letter, “Section 58 notwithstanding anything contained in Section 57, the Commission may, at any time after the issuance of notification under sub-section (1) of that section, make such alterations in the elections programme announced in that notification for the different stages of the election or may issue a fresh election programme with fresh poll date(s) as may, in its opinion to be recorded in writing, be necessary for the purposes of this Act.”
He mentioned that the judgments of March 1 and April 5 have divested the ECP of its constitutional powers to determine as to whether conducive environment in facts and circumstances, exists for the conduct of polls in a given time, to meet the standards mentioned in Article 218(3).
The CEC mentioned that the electoral body has consistently strived to uphold the writ of law, fair play and merit in letter and spirit. However, he added that the commission’s writ has been systematically challenged on several occasions. “In practice, ECP’s authority has been eroded,” he said.
He talked about the ECP’s crucial disciplinary interventions in the past which were stayed and set aside and gave wayward functionaries the message of hiding behind legal orders despite committing “serious level irregularities in discharge of their official functions”.