Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said the name of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) will be finalised by December 5 as per directive of the Supreme Court. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Ishaq Dar said that the name of CEC will be finalised between government and Opposition Leader Syed Khursheed Shah by today (Wednesday), adding, if the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader failed to agree upon one name then the decision will be made by the parliamentary committee. He said, "Prime Minister has asked me to develop consensus on the appointment of CEC".
Under the Constitution, the government and the Opposition will propose three names to the parliamentary committee for appointment of CEC in case both failed to evolve consensus. The committee comprises eight MNAs and four senators. Before leaving abroad, he said the Prime Minister provided him guidelines for the appointment of CEC and he has been in contact with the Opposition leader who is also not in Islamabad. He expressed hope that both sides would agree in today (Wednesday) meeting on three names to be referred to the parliamentary committee for final slot of CEC.
Ishaq Dar further said that they would also request the Speaker National Assembly to schedule the meeting of parliamentary committee on December 4 before the deadline given by the Supreme Court for appointment of CEC. Responding to another question, he said the government would ask PTI to call off its strike on December 5. He said that strike would be detrimental for the economy and traders had already rejected PTI's strike call. Country's economy would have been in better situation had there been no sit-ins, he said.
He further said the government was ready to hold talks with PTI and the government did not want to repeat the bitterness of the past and would resume talks from the point where they were left in September. The minister said the government wanted a solution of current political turmoil through talks, adding that the government was sincere, but sincerity should be displayed from both sides.
He said the government has been working on PTI's demand for electoral reforms. A parliamentary committee on electoral reforms has held 16 meetings and reviewing the electoral reforms, whereas another demand of formation of judicial commission to probe alleged rigging in general election 2013. He said the government showed its readiness to make PTI's allegation of rigging in elections a scope of work for judicial commission. As judicial commission would comprise senior judges, it should be left to them to decide what mechanism should be adopted to look into the allegation of election rigging by PTI.
Comments
Comments are closed.