The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) decided on Friday in a meeting to expedite preparation of electoral lists for tribal districts, erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Secretary Election Commission Babar Yaqoob chaired the meeting and directed the relevant officials to prepare electoral lists of all the tribal districts for upcoming elections on provincial seats in the area.
The Commission also urged voters of the tribal districts to get their votes registered on their permanent or temporary addresses to become eligible to cast their votes in the elections.
The ECP has also issued an order for review of electoral rolls on expiring the last date of December 31, for registration of votes as per CNIC address. An ECP official said that all such voters' names have become ineffective who failed to register their votes by due date, adding the facility of giving further time for registration of vote as per CNIC address will be available till completion of review process.
Meanwhile, the Commission has started receiving objections on initial draft regarding constituencies of tribal districts in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly belonging to the erstwhile FATA. The Commission will continue receiving objections till February 1 while the period of hearing and decisions on objections will be done from February 3 to March 1. The final publication of constituencies will be on March 4 and there will be no change in date of final publication.
The ECP issued a draft list of constituencies on Wednesday last, notifying the share of tribal districts for the allocation of seats in the provincial assembly of the KP. A share of 16 seats for provincial assembly of KP has been allocated for eight tribal districts in accordance with provisions of Article 106 of the Constitution as amended vide 25th amendment and in the light of provisional results of the sixth population census of 2017 officially published on January 3, 2018, by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
Three provincial assembly seats had been allocated for Bajaur district, while two seats for Mohmand and three seats for Khyber district. The commission had also allocated two seats for Kurram, one for Orakzai district, two for North Waziristan, two for South Waziristan and one seat for Frontier Regions.