Pakistan's main opposition political party - Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) - has expressed full confidence in the independence of the ECP, effectively rejecting doubts expressed by some elements regarding its composition and neutrality. There are analysts who support the view promoted by chief of Pakistan Awami Tehreek Dr Tahirul Qadri that the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had quietly inducted at least three of its loyalists in the ECP.
The view is also endorsed by chief of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Imran Khan, who insists that ECP's composition favours the ruling party. According to these analysts, these three pro-PPP members would allow it to select the caretaker Prime Minister of its choice if the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly did not agree on a single candidate.
PML-N is not lending any credence to these "reports", rejecting them as mere rumours. "There is no truth in this (assertion)...the PPP is itself supporting Qadri, in one way or the other, to reconstitute the Election Commission of Pakistan," said PML-N's deputy secretary-general Ahsan Iqbal, adding that if PPP had been sure of the support of this so-called "majority" in the ECP, why did it support Qadri's move.
Another senior PML-N leader Senator Mushahidullah Khan said that the party had full confidence in ECP's independence, adding that it would accept its decisions. Some media reports suggested that the PPP was "planning" not to arrive at a consensus with the opposition during the constitutional process so that the issue of caretaker prime minister could be left with the ECP, a constitutional obligation. This would, commentators said, allow the party to exploit its "majority" in the ECP, as the ruling party and its allies enjoyed support of three members - one each from Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, in the five-member Election Commission.
Sources in the ECP, however, laughed off at these 'speculations', saying that the objections raised on the impartiality of the ECP members, particularly ones from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, were 'unfortunate'. Citing the case of Waheeda Shah, PPP's candidate for Sindh Assembly, a senior official of the ECP said that she had been disqualified after commission members from Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab opposed the opinion of the then Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), former Justice Hamid Ali Mirza, and member from Sindh former Justice Mohammad Roshan Ali Essani.
Expressing surprise over such objections about the impartiality of ECP members from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said that they had proved their neutrality in the Waheeda Shah case. Meanwhile, the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs was planning a briefing by the Ministry of Law next week about the composition of the Election Commission of Pakistan and the government talks with Qadri.
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