Pakistan EC to Announce Poll Schedule on Dec 14

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will announce the schedule for the general election around December 14, which is 56 days before the scheduled polling day i.e. February 8.

ECP senior official said everything was set up for free and fair elections. They also said that the chief justices of the Sindh, Lahore, and Peshawar High Courts had already turned down judicial officer requests to be appointed as district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs).

Now they are waiting for an answer from the Balochistan High Court. DROs and ROs would be appointed soon and that district administration officers would likely take over this duty.

Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja has asked the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) to meet with him on December 4, to talk about the party’s worries about the election and find solutions.

ECP criticized Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Babar Awan’s statement that the number of National Assembly seats from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been reduced was just an attempt to cause misunderstanding.

ECP made it clear that 12 National Assembly seats were taken away from FATA when the region merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the 25th Constitutional Amendment in 2018.

In spite of what PTI leader Babar Awan said, the province’s National Assembly seats went from 39 to 45.

The representative of EPC also said that the number of general seats in the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has grown from 99 to 115. It was ridiculous that the lawyer was questioning the ECP’s right to cut Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s seats.

It is up to parliament to decide who gets to sit in the national and provincial governments. The Election Commission has divided the constituencies according to the constitutionally assigned seats.