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Friday, September 28, 2012

Parties oppose right to vote for overseas Pakistanis

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Majority of political parties on Thursday opposed a plan to grant right to vote to 3.7 million overseas Pakistanis in the absence of a feasible mechanism.
Representatives of political parties were invited to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for a consultative session on matters relating to general elections.
Sources told Daily Times that these representatives expressed the fear that bogus votes would be polled through postal ballots unless a well-thought-of mode was evolved to enable overseas Pakistanis to exercise their votes from abroad. These 3.7 million overseas Pakistanis are already on electoral rolls but will not be able to cast their votes in the forthcoming general elections, unless they chose to travel to Pakistan.
The proposal to allow dual nationals to become members of parliament was dropped due to opposition of representatives of some political parties.
Sources said the Jamhoori Watan Party threatened to boycott elections in protest against the poor law and order situation in Balochistan.
However, Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G Ebrahim advised the party not to go for the boycott and assured that the party’s concerns would be addressed.
Almost all the parties welcomed the proposal to increase the number of National Assembly seats. Later, talking to reporters, Ebrahim said the army would be deployed at polling stations, if need be. He said he was ready to consult anybody, including the ISI director general, in order to hold transparent and fair elections.

Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk

 

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