Senate Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs has urged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to play an assertive role and exercise autonomy for ensuring smooth elections.
The committee was chaired by Senator Saeed Ghani on Thursday where issues related to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) specially hurdles being faced during election process were discussed.
The committee meeting was attended by Senator Saleem Zia, Senator Mualana Tanveer-ul-Haq Thanvi, Senator Nehal Hashmi, Senator Gul Bashra, Secretary Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Additional Secretary Election Commission.
The committee was informed that the ECP lacks financial autonomy and sent a proposal to the relevant quarters to give financial autonomy to the Commission so that it could perform functions effectively.
It was also informed that the EC requires three hundred thousand Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to carry out polling at 70,000 Polling Stations through out the country. The plans to implement Electronic Voting are underway and ECP aims at using EVMs in any by-elections conducted after December 2016 as a test case.
The matter of overseas Pakistani voters was also discussed in the meeting and, the committee was informed that the voting by overseas Pakistanis would not be possible in the next general elections (2018).
The committee was told the agenda of "The Representation of the Peoples (Amendment) Bill, 2016", and was deferred on the request of mover Senator Sherry Rehman due to her unavailability in the country.
Members of the committee gave numerous recommendations for bringing efficiency in working of the ECP.
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