Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday held a meeting to discuss matters pertaining to the upcoming elections’, and said that it is aiming to provide an online system to ensure scrutiny of nomination papers of election candidates.

The meeting at the ECP was headed by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Sardar Raza Khan.

ECP Information Technology DG Khizer Aziz briefed senior officials of the ECP, as well as officials from the National Database and Registration Authority, the Federal Investigation Agency, the National Accountability Bureau, the State Bank of Pakistan, the Water and Power Development Authority and power and gas utilities about the agenda.

Aziz informed the participants of the meeting that the Returning Officers (ROs) would send the candidates’ names, identity card numbers and constituency names to six different government departments.

He also stated that ROs would be able to get all the details of the candidates online.

Aziz expects 30,000 candidates to submit nomination papers this time. In the 2013 elections, the figure stood at 26,000.

The officials participating in the meeting requested the ECP to send nomination papers to them at the earliest so the scrutiny can be conducted as soon as possible, and to avoid a backlog.

Recently, the ECP concluded the hearings of objections to the delimitation of new constituencies in the country in line with the latest population census.

General elections are expected to be held in the last week of July or the first week of August after the term of the present government expires on May 31.