Daily Times

Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms Chairman Ayaz Sadiq on Wednesday said any proposal to ban a political party was not under consideration.

Speaking to the media after chairing a meeting, he said the committee was meant to do election reforms and not ban a political party.

“The committee will finalise recommendations on reforms in the coming week,” the PML-N leader added.

He went on to say that the committee discussed recommendations, adding that effective recommendations were taken into consideration to hold transparent elections. “A lot of things were done in former CJP Saqib Nisar’s tenure,” he added. “We are trying to correct controversial decisions regarding election reforms taken in Nisar’s tenure,” he said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that the tenure of government would end on Aug 14 and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) would give the election date accordingly. The remarks of prime minister came a day after his meeting with the chief of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who favours dissolution of assemblies and general elections on time.

“I assure you that our government’s tenure will end on Aug 14 and elections will be announced by the ECP,” the PM said. He hoped that whichever government comes, it will prioritise the education. Earlier, there were reports that the PML-N was reluctant to go into the polls on time but other allies including PPP and JUI-F were pressing to hold elections as per the schedule after dissolution of the assembly. A meeting was also held between the bigwigs and decision makers of both the PML-N and PPP last week in Dubai where the issue was discussed in detail. It was reported that meetings between PML-N and PPP leadership in the United Arab Emirates resulted in a consensus on a number of issues, including names for the caretaker set-up and a power-sharing formula if the two parties win the next election.