| Translate This News In |
|---|
According to a media report today, Pakistan’s Election Commission has stated that it will be unable to hold general elections within three months due to legal, constitutional, and logistical challenges. Pakistan’s embattled Prime Minister Imran Khan stunned the resistance on Sunday by suggesting snap elections within three months, just minutes after the deputy speaker of the National Assembly dismissed a no-confidence motion against him. Imran Khan then persuaded Pakistan President Arif Alvi to dissolve the National Assembly, which had 342 members. The Supreme Court of Pakistan adjourned the hearing on Monday on the deputy speaker’s decision to reject Prime Minister Khan’s no-confidence motion after he lost a majority in the lower house of Parliament.
According to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, a senior Election Commission official stated that the preparations for the general elections would take six months due to fresh delimitation of constituencies, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the number of seats was increased under the 26th Amendment, and bringing district- and constituency-wise electoral rolls in conformity.
“Delimitation is a time-consuming exercise where the law provides for one month just to invite objections,” the official was quoted as saying in the report.
Among the other inherent challenges, according to the official, were the procurement of election materials, the arrangement for ballot papers, and the appointment and training of polling staff.
According to the report, he stated that under the law, ballot papers with watermarks were to be used, which were not available in the country and thus would have to be imported, and revealed that the top election body had proposed amending the law to provide for ballot papers with’security features’ rather than ‘watermarks.’
According to the official, inviting bids and analysing financial and technical quotations would also take some time. In terms of election materials, he stated that approximately two million stamp pads would be required for approximately 100,000 polling stations.
Concerning the legal obstacles, the official stated that the Election Commission was poised to announce a voting plan four months before the polls under Section 14 of the Elections Act.
