Islamabad, Aug 31: Pakistan’s election commission has assured the political parties that the general elections would be held by January end or mid-February, allaying fears about the fate of the polls in the cash-strapped nation.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) gave assurance to the Awami National Party (ANP) when the party leaders met the election body, the Dawn newspaper reported on Thursday.
The meeting held on Wednesday was chaired by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja and also attended by senior ECP officials.
The ANP delegation was led by its secretary general Iftikhar Hussain, central spokesman Zahid Khan, and party leaders Khushdil Khan and Abdul Rahim Wazir.
Pakistan’s National Assembly was dissolved on August 9. The elections in the country should be held within the stipulated time of 90 days after the dissolution of the National Assembly.
Pakistan President Arif Alvi appointed Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar as caretaker prime minister in mid-August to run the country until fresh elections.
However, the ECP decided to conduct a fresh delimitation of Constituencies on the basis of the new census, delaying the general elections.
During a consultative meeting between the ANP representatives and the electoral watchdog to discuss the election roadmap, the ANP requested that if conducting the election within 90 days was not feasible, they be provided with the election date and schedule.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had made a similar demand a day ago to end the uncertainty surrounding the coming polls.
Hussain, after the meeting with the ECP, stated that the election commission assured them of their readiness for mid-February elections and expressed their commitment to expedite the constituency delimitation process to potentially allow for earlier elections.
The Election Commission officials assured ANP leaders of squeezing the delimitation timeline as much as possible and said elections might even be held sooner, probably by the end of January, if the delimitation exercise was completed earlier.
They insisted that the ECP would not succumb to pressure from any side and that the elections would not go beyond mid-February under any circumstances.
The Election Commission said that under the already announced delimitation schedule, the process should be completed in 120 days (by December 14). However, it was also possible that the ECP cut the timeframe for delimitation and announced the election schedule along with the amended delimitation schedule in the next few days.
However, the ANP delegation noted that the ECP should have consulted political parties before announcing the delimitation schedule.
Later, Hussain told reporters that the Election Commission had assured the party of fast-tracking the redrawing of constituencies so that general elections could not go beyond mid-February.
Hussain said that during the meeting with the ECP, his party highlighted that holding elections within 90 days after the assembly’s dissolution was a constitutional requirement. (PTI)
