ISLAMABAD - PPP Central Information Secretary Qamar Zaman Kaira has said that there was no formal decision at party level about the acceptance or otherwise of the involvement of judiciary in the conduct of upcoming general elections.
Kaira, who is also federal information minister, told The Nation here on Sunday that so far the matter had not been taken up at party level and once the Pakistan People’s Party would take some line on the issue, he would come up with a policy statement on it.
A section of press carried a news item attributing to Federal Law Minister Farooq H Naek that the PPP would not accept next general elections under the supervision of judiciary and that they would prefer to see the caretaker setup to oversee the electoral process, instead.
Some party insiders confirmed to The Nation that there was sharp divide in the party about the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision to seek assistance or supervision of judiciary in holding of elections. Some senior party leaders prefer elections under the caretaker setup while others are of the view that involvement of judiciary would lend credibility to the electoral process, they said.
The party leadership is said to be also divided on the issue of holding the elections for national and provincial assembly seats on the same day.
Some of them believe that holding both the elections the same day would confuse the voters and therefore the old pattern of separate elections for national and provincial seats should be kept in practice.
Party sources informed that PPP’s strategy for the elections would be discussed threadbare in the meeting of party ministers and MNAs called at Nawabshah on Nov 21 (Wednesday) by President Zardari.
They said that besides discussing matters like performance of the PPP Parliamentarians, the meeting would also seek input of the MPs on the holding of elections under the supervision of judiciary. Then, after a decision, the legal wizards of the party would evolve their future course of action.