Pakistan Peoples’ Party leader rejects new electoral lists

Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) senior leader and General Secretary of Sindh Chapter Taj Haider expressed serious concerns over the verification of electoral lists, asking the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to restore electoral rolls of 1998.

In a letter written to Chief Election Commissioner Justice (Retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, the PPP leader said his party doesn’t approve of the revised electoral rolls.

Underscoring the need to include the names of new voters along with their present addresses instead of their permanent addresses and their fresh pictures, he asked the ECP to restore previous lists.

He congratulated the newly appointed CEC, saying his competence and integrity was remarkable and he could make the coming elections most authentic leaving no room for doubts.

Taj Haider, however, said that the work done by the ECP has had great shortcomings and loopholes which have made fair elections almost an impossible task.

He observed, “A space has already been created for anti-democratic forces to rig the next elections and manipulate the results. The PPP is not merely going to confine itself to pointing out mistakes. Instead it will propose possible solutions to other political parties”.

The PPP leader in his nine-page letter commended the fact the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) was using the reliable electronic data in the National Identity Cards (NIC).

Apart from the NICs the electronic data is also being used in national programmes like the Benazir Income Support Programme and Watan Cards, he added.

He noted, “Home numbers were put even on shops and electric motor pump cabins in buildings, while large areas were simply not visited by the enumerators”.

While commenting the directives issued by the Sindh CM Syed Qaim Ali shah he said, “Shah Sahib instructed the officials of census that 1998 demarcations of blocks and circles should be followed, but all went in vain”.

The political leader added that the office of the provincial Census Commissioner in its report to the federal government raised serious objections over the exercise they had conducted and stopped the next phase of population count.

He was of the opinion that this was a rejected house count exercise from which the Election Commission chose to make the electoral rolls and asked NADRA to give CNIC numbers against the highly doubtful House Count numbers.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=31397

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Aug 25 2012. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.