The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has said that priority lists, submitted by political parties of their reserved seats candidates, are final and cannot be altered.
ECP Secretary Kanwar Muhmmad Dilshad clarified in a statement on Tuesday that the priority lists as were submitted by the political parties on November 26 had attained finality and as such, the requests to revise those could not be entertained for the reason that law did not provide for addition or subtraction of new names after expiry of statutory period under Article 8F of the Conduct of General Elections Order, 2002 and Section 47A of the Representation of the People Act, 1976.
He said that the programme for holding elections to the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies was issued by the ECP on November 20, 2007. Political parties filed their separate lists of their candidates in order of priority for seats reserved for women and non-Muslims within the EC for submission of nomination papers.
In this regard, he invited the attention of the political parties to Proviso to Rule 4 (4) of the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies allocation of reserved seats for women and non-Muslims (Procedure) Rules, 2002, which lays down that the list submitted by a political party shall not be subject to change or alteration either in the order of priority or through addition or subtraction of new names after expiry of the date of submission of the nomination papers.
Dilshad further said that, as provided under Article 224(6) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, when a seat reserved for women or non-Muslims in the National Assembly or a Provincial Assembly falls vacant, due to death, resignation or disqualification of a member, it would be filled by the next person in order of precedence from the party list of the candidates submitted to the Election Commission for the last general election by the political party whose member had vacated such seat.