News
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
NA approves Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2011
* Passage of bill triggers protest, walkout from PML-N
* Nisar says passage of bill in haphazard way won’t serve its purpose
By Tanveer Ahmed
ISLAMABAD: The Lower House of parliament on Monday passed the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2011 with a majority vote to ensure free, fair and transparent elections in the country.
The bill moved by the government triggered a protest from the main opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which demanded to referral of the bill to a House committee to fine-tune it before “it is passed by the National Assembly”. The passage of the bill by a majority vote resulted in a protest and later a walkout from the House by PML-N members.
Earlier, opposition leader in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, flayed the government for rushing the bill in the House, saying that the passage of the bill in a haphazard way would not serve the purpose for which it had been tabled.
He pointed out that the amendment being sought by the opposition was aimed at making the election laws more effective to check the practice of bogus voting in the country.
Nisar also took the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to task which, he said, was playing in the hands of certain elements to issue computerised national identity cards on liking and disliking. He also cast a doubt about the transparent working of the NADRA, alleging that the sitting chief of the organisation was a crony of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Minister for Religious Affairs Khursheed Shah, who introduced the bill in the House, said that the bill would help end election rigging and registration of bogus voters in the voters’ list of the Election Commission. He disclosed that around 37 million bogus votes were cast in the last general elections and most of these votes were reported from Punjab.
The amended elections laws, he hoped, would have the real mandate of the people, and said that in the future, no one would dare to topple an elected government which would have a transparent mandate. He noted that passage of the bill would express the resolve of parliament to ensure free, fair and transparent upcoming general elections.
A PML-N leader, Zahid Hamid, whose amendment in the bill was rejected by the House, said the government was not taking care of the reservations raised by his party. He proposed that the bill should be referred to a House committee for further deliberations.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement parliamentary leader, Farooq Sattar, also supported the passage of the bill. However, he stressed that concerns of the opposition should also be addressed. He recommended that a parliamentary committee or a judicial commission should be constituted to look into 37 million bogus votes polled during the last general elections. He said that all the political parties should have representation in the parliamentary committee set up for appointment of judges.
Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid leader, Riaz Pirzada, also supported the bill and endorsed the views of Farooq Sattar that apprehensions of the opposition should be considered to make it more effective.Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk