20000410

EC suggests fresh

electoral rolls to

ensure transparency

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission has recommended that a scheme for fresh preparation of electoral rolls should be devised so that flawless electoral rolls are prepared to save as basic instrument for conduct of free and fair elections in the country.

The electoral rolls should be prepared afresh after every four years by house to house enumeration as is the practice in some other countries.

The process of updating of electoral rolls through annual revision or by using provisions of section 18 of the Electoral Rolls Act, 1974 does not serve the purpose because these exercises fail to attain the desired objective, the Commission said in its recent report.

The reports says the legal scheme of annual revision of electoral rolls envisages the draft publication of the existing electoral rolls and inviting of claims/objections/application thereon.

This method does not help in updating the electoral rolls in its true sense due to various reasons including apathy on the part of the general voters in filing claims/objections/applications. This exercise is used by some vested interests for including bogus names in the electoral rolls. Then, many demographical changes also take place over the period of time. In cities, towns or urban areas new abadis spring up and some of the adjacent villages become part of the urban areas.

For instance, in Islamabad sectors F-11 and G-11 were just non-existent in 1986-87 whereas sector 1-8 was a tiny sector. All the above mentioned three sectors are now full-fledged sectors with sizeable population.

The Election Commission also recommended holding of simultaneous polls for the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies.

This will help eliminating the possible impact of the results of National Assembly on the voting trend for the Provincial Assemblies elections.

Simultaneous polls in the country had been proved a blessing for the nation as it saved from a possible chaos and confusion like the one experienced in the aftermath of March, 1977 general elections.

Besides many other merits of simultaneous poll, it definitely saved the country from going through the same administrative and electoral process twice during a short span of three to four days, says a recent report of the commission.

Thus, it has been recommended that in future elections for the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies should be held simultaneously by faith-fully observing the provisions of section 25 of the representation of the Peoples Act, 1976, which clearly provides for holding of these elections on the same day.

The commission observed that during last many general elections in the country a number of amendments in various provisions of the representation of the People Act, 1976 are made on the eve of each general election through amending ordinances and then a few of these amendments are repromulgated after every four months.

It is also observed that some amendments, which do not suit a particular group of politicians, are allowed to lapse. This leaves a cavum in the legal framework provided for the elections.

It is, therefore, high time that a package of legal reforms is brought before the parliament and amendments in the basic law for conduct of elections, i.e., the representation of the People Act, 1976, should be made through an act of parliament so that the law attains some kind of finality.

The Commission recommended that only those amendments be made, which, for some reason, are considered absolutely essential. In this respect we can follow the example of our neighbouring country India where only a few amendments have been made in the representation of the People Act, 1951 during the last 46 years.ÑAPP