ISLAMABAD -  President of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Asif Ali Zardari has expressed grave concern over the missing women voters from the voters list and called upon the government and all relevant State institutions to address the issue in right earnest for the credibility of the 2018 polls.

He stated this while speaking at a briefing held at Zardari House here on voters registration and other election related issues in the country. On the occasion, the four-member FAFEN team comprising Shahid Fayyaz, Mudassir Rizvi, Yasir Javed and Javed Minwa gave the briefing.

The meeting was informed that the Election Commission had also stated recently that over 13 million women were not in the voters lists and not eligible to vote in the elections..

Zardari said that the voters registration issue was important for empowering women by enabling them to participate in the political decision making processes.

He said that the Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah will also raise the election and delimitation related issues at the meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) on Monday and present its point of view forcefully.

He also demanded to know the figures of above 18 years old in the country both males and females to make a fair assessment as to how many citizens were still not registered voters. The issue of under registration must also be addressed speedily, the former President demanded.

He also called upon Party office bearers to keep watch on the progress made in this regard and to keep him posted regularly.

The PPP leaders who attended the briefing included Nayyer Hussain Bokhari Secretary General PPP, Farhatullah Babar Secretary General PPPP, Chaudhry Manzoor Secretary Information PPP and Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar Information Secretary PPP.

Elections to be held on time, says ECP head

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza on Friday said that the upcoming general elections in 2018 will be held on time. He was talking to media after attending the launching ceremony of vote registration facility here at National Database and Registration Authority’s (NADRA) Mega Centre.

Addressing the ceremony earlier, the Chief Election Commissioner said that this joint venture of ECP and NADRA will be helpful to facilitate the citizens to having their place of vote registration on their own choice.

He said that this service will be provided to the citizens on issuance of new CNIC by getting their option of registration of vote as per permanent or temporary address.

He said that ECP wants to prepare electoral rolls in transparent way to prevent from objections of any political party.

The Election Commission will make electoral rolls for election process accurate and error proof with help of NADRA, he said.

Moreover, he appealed the citizens to cooperate with the NADRA staff for registration of their vote in accurate electoral rolls of their own choice.

On the occasion, Chairman NADRA Usman Mobin termed this facility as major achievement and outcome of ECP and NADRA cooperation to facilitate the people. He added that there were still key challenges like non-registration of voters.

The ECP had asked NADRA to introduce a system of registration of vote on issuance of National Identity Card by obtaining the choice of the CNIC applicant, he further said, adding, this service, the applicant of CNIC will be asked for registration of their vote as per temporary or permanent address.

NADRA will tag their address on GPS map to have knowledge of their location, he stated.