Sensitizing voters about importance of votes: ECP has devised awareness campaign: official

The Supreme Court verdict is an endorsement of the various proposals currently under consideration for strengthening Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and its supervisory role for holding free and fair elections, an official said.
The commission under the directives of Acting Chief Election Commissioner has devised an awareness campaign for voters, which would shortly be initiated at union council level. Main objective of the move is to sensitise voters about the importance of their votes.
A committee has already been working on this subject in collaboration with provincial election commissioners. The exercise is related to SC's ruling, underlining the need of legislation for making it mandatory for all eligible voters to cast their votes.
The official further said the commission was also working on another project (pilot project) to set up polling stations at every one kilometer distance in the Islamabad Capital Territory in collaboration with district administration. Regarding the pilot project, chief commissioner Islamabad presented a report containing details of poling stations at a distance of one kilometer each. They identified the areas at one km distance for establishment of poling stations both for male and female. "The work on the pilot project is already in progress under the supervision of a committee," the official said. This would help the ECP to prevent contesting candidates to hire transports facilities for eligible voters. This would allow the voters to cast their vote according to their own conscious, the official added.
Moreover, the ECP also constituted another committee to make the election expenditures practicable. A proposal has been under the consideration to allow spending of Rs 3 million for National Assembly and Rs 2.5 million on the election for provincial assemblies. He said the commission was working on the proposals in house, which do not require legislations. Other proposals which require legislation have already been under consideration of Ministry of Law and Justice.
The Supreme Court on Friday mandated the ECP to play its role to administer free and fair elections in the country. A three-judge bench of the apex court issued its verdict on a petition filed by Barrister Zafarullah of the Watan Party relating to election campaign expenses and the role of the ECP. The court ruled that the ECP should be strict in implementation of laws pertaining to elections as well as monitor the expenses of political parties and other candidates on the election campaigns.