The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has recommended to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to make Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) mandatory for both registration and casting of votes in elections to ensure complete transparency in the process.
Up to December 2009, Nadra has issued 75.5 million CNICs, which includes 44.98 million to male and 30.51 million to female adults, said Deputy Chairman, Nadra, Tariq Malik, while talking to Business Recorder here on Tuesday. He said he had informed CEC that NADRA was ready to cooperate in preparing the electoral rolls to avoid any discrepancies in the lists.
"We will extend all-out support to CEC and it is better to announce the requirements for casting of votes immediately, so that people can get themselves registered well in time and new error-free electoral rolls can be prepared," he said. Malik identified four problems in electoral rolls: duplication of entries, wrong entries, those who obtain CNICs but are not registered in electoral rolls and fake ID cards (not NADRA CNICs).
He said that all these problems could be checked only by making CNIC mandatory for both registration of a voter in electoral rolls and casting of vote. "We have attained the target of over 86 percent registration of people of Pakistan and there are examples of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Albania, Bangladesh and Spain, where elections are held on the basis of 80 percent registration," he argued.
Malik said that the authority had given a detailed presentation to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) regarding the registration process of Nadra to convince him of the need to employ Nadra's database for transparent elections. He added that this could only be done by the Chief Election Commissioner or Chief Justice of Pakistan and not by the chief executive of the country.
All political forces were consulted and they were convinced that the next elections should be on the basis of Nadra's registration to ensure transparency and credibility of the elections, Tariq Mehmood said, adding that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Awami National Party (ANP) were taken on board and they assured their support in this regard. "Besides other political forces, the nationalist parties of Balochistan have also agreed to the proposal," he said.
To a question regarding the decrease in adult franchise from 21 to 18 years, Tariq Malik said that Nadra had already registering 18 year olds, besides it announced a special service for under 18s. "We are seeking the addresses and mobile numbers of people below 18 so that they can be informed about registration when they turn to 18", he added.
Malik said that until now Nadra had registered over 40 million people of the age group between 18 to 35, adding that it is expected to reach 100 million by 2015. Malik said the Census of 1998 is the baseline for registration and projections applied on the basis of yearly growth rate of 3.7 percent. He said that the total adult population of Pakistan was expected to be 88.32 million (45.47 million male and 42.85 million female).
He said that out of the 88.32 million projected adult population, Nadra had registered 75.5 million people (85.5 percent of the total adult population), while the process to register the remaining 12.82 million was underway. He said that the authority issued average nine million CNICs yearly, adding in the recent past it focused on improving its coverage of female citizens - a tremendous response from women resulted in an increase of 52 percent in women registration.
"The coverage gap, mainly in female registration will be covered within one year and the announcement of declaring CNIC mandatory for registration and casting of votes will help NADRA cover this gap in less than one year," he opined. It is to be mentioned here that the CNIC issuance is an on-going process and each year around four million teenagers attain the age of 18 years and become eligible for CNIC. This addition will always create a gap and CNIC coverage will never be 100 percent.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2007 had barred the ECP from announcing that CNIC would be mandatory for casting vote, observing that the requirement would deprive huge numbers from casting their votes. At the time just 52 percent of the adult population was registered with Nadra.
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