General election: Election Commission's two-day meeting to review budgetary allocations

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) former Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim has summoned two-day meeting on Thursday (Today) to review the budgetary allocations essential for holding upcoming general election. As the next general elections are nearing, the ECP has geared up its preparation for free and transparent elections.
Officials in ECP informed the Business Recorder that the session is very important as all the heads of provincial/federal election commissions, Nadra, UNDP along with other donor agencies are participating in the meeting and will deliberate over the budget requirement for holding general election.
They said that the meeting will also review other options for the upcoming elections. It will be followed by a consultation meeting of all political parties, which will be summoned at the last week of current month, with the purpose to seek their consents over various steps proposed by ECP for general election.
These steps were being displayed during holding by-elections of NA seats of Multan and other districts. "The ECP has to face a lot of criticism for providing transport facilities to voters in Multan by-election. Therefore, political parties will be asked if such kind of facilities should be continue or suspend, besides discussing some other aspects with them," an official commented.
All the four members of the ECP will brief the CEC and shall hand over their estimates required for balloting boxes and other expenses. Recently, the ECP tendered an order for the procurement of 41,000 transparent ballot boxes to prevent ballot-stuffing. Earlier, the commission had 392,000 ballot boxes, which are likely to increase to 433,000 transparent boxes after the procurement.
The ECP sources said the authorities had approved the procurement of ballot boxes, as the number of voters had increased to around 83 million. They said the commission decided to keep reserve ballot boxes in case polling stations were increased or if any needed to be replaced. The Election Commission also procured 100,000 transparent boxes worth Rs 10 million in 2011, for the same purpose. However, the authorities floated the new tender, considering the number insufficient to meet the future demands. Sources further said that during the meeting, the proposals of the NAB will also be reviewed to conduct corruption-free elections.
Meanwhile, ECP has asked Nadra to update Final Electoral Rolls (FER-12) by adding 781,73 voters, who were issued CNIC after printing of FER-12 on May 31, 2012. Nadra has received directions from ECP that names of new CNIC holders will be enrolled as voters on monthly basis after verifying their physical presence through door-to-door verification. However, in first instance all new CNICs which were issued by Nadra during the month of June, July and August 2012 will be included in FER 2012.