The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will meet today (Tuesday) to decide what to do on the issue of dual nationality after secretariats of National Assembly, Senate and three Provincial Assemblies refused to cooperate with ECP in taking fresh oath from the lawmakers.
Following the directives of Supreme Court of Pakistan, the ECP has already made it clear that the country needs pure Pakistanis as its representatives and that half Pakistanis are not needed. In response to ECP's letters to parliamentarians, Senate Special Committee on Election was convened and attended by senators from majority of political parties who opposed the move of the ECP and vowed not to submit their fresh declaration demanded by ECP. The committee has also invited representatives of all the political parties, National Assembly and civil society to formulate a plan how to stop the ECP from 'crossing its limit' they decided in the meeting.
However, Pakistan Muslim League (N) complying with the directives of ECP circulated the fresh declaration forms to Member Provincial Assembly of Punjab. Senator Ishaq Dar told Business Recorder that declaration of their nationality was presented in the assets declaration form. "Parliamentarians have signed to comply with Constitutional Article 62 and Article 63 that they are Pakistani nationals", he opined.
In this particular case, ECP was not giving any new directive, it was trying to facilitate the members again who failed to comply with Article 62 and 63 at the time of signing asset declaration, he said. Majority of parliamentarians might not have seen the form of asset declaration carefully as bottom three lines of the form clearly refer to Article 62 and 63, he said.
Replying to a letter written by Attorney General of Pakistan on the issue of politicians holding dual nationalities, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim reportedly said that the commission would follow the directives of SC. "The ECP has summoned a meeting on October 9 to decide what to do on the issue of dual nationality. We were the first ones to disqualify parliamentarians, holding dual nationalities. Now that the Supreme Court is also looking into the matter, it has further strengthened this case. This matter is of high importance", he reportedly said. The parliamentarians seemed upset over how some politicians were disqualified for holding dual nationalities. And ECP asked the secretaries of NA, Senate and PAs to provide relevant information, but they refused to cooperate.
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