Daily Times

KARACHI: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is contemplating action against non-serious/active political parties by asking them to deposit Rs 200,000 enlistment fee with the list of their 2,000 workers along with their data.

According to sources, there are 300 political parties, which do not fulfil essential formalities and their registration may be cancelled.

Daily Times has learnt that the total number of registered political parties in the country has risen to 352, which are more than the 342 seats in the National Assembly. Till 2013 only 147 political parties were registered.

A notice in this regard will be issued to such parties to furnish details of accounts and intraparty elections within a grace period of 30 days. If any political party fails to provide such details, a show-cause notice will be issued and subsequently the party may be delisted by the ECP.

An ECP official said that show-cause notices would be issued to those parties, which would fail to submit their annual statements of accounts and result of intraparty elections until November 30th 2017. H said that only 15 political parties had submitted their annual statements of accounts. Sources revealed that more than 330 political parties had never been part of the parliament out of 352 parties and only 18 political parties had been able to make it to the National assembly.

Published in Daily Times, October 14^th 2017.