File photo, courtesy PID
Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar on Thursday said the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms has completed about 99 percent of the work required, adding he hopes a consensus draft of the proposed amendments will be ready by next week.
Speaking with journalists after the third meeting of the committee this week, he said a few clauses required more discussions, which would be taken up during a meeting on Monday. Once consensus has been achieved, he said, a draft bill would be prepared to ensure transparent elections and placed before both houses of Parliament for final approval. He commended committee chairman Ayaz Sadiq for successfully achieving consensus on contentious matters.
To a question, he said the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had objected to a few points proposed by other parties, adding that these were “minor” issues and should be easily rectified.
The National Assembly completes its constitutional term in August, leaving the ruling coalition less than a month to ensure proposed amendments to the Elections Act are debated and passed before the government is placed in the hands of an interim setup ahead of general elections due later this year.
According to Tarar, Thursday’s meeting saw consensus on several previously contentious issues. To a question, he said the committee had scrapped a proposal to make Parliament the supreme authority for dissolution of a political party or an individual’s membership. He also clarified that PTI Senator Syed Ali Zafar had informed the panel that he would give some suggestions on the remaining issues during the committee’s next meeting. These issues, he stressed, were of a legal and technical nature and had nothing to do with politics.
Per local media, some of the pending issues include determining whether or not to implement voting through postal ballot and the framing of a code of conduct, which had earlier been devised by the Supreme Court despite it lacking the jurisdiction to do so.
The in-camera meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Affairs was led by Sadiq and attended by Tarar; Commerce Minister Naveed Qamar; Senator Taj Haider; MNA Afzal Dhandla; Senator Manzoor Ahmed; Senator Kamran Murtaza; Fehmida Mirza; and Senator Zafar via video-link. The Election Commission of Pakistan’s secretary also participated.