Daily Times

The new nominated chief election commissioner, Dr Sikandar Sultan Raja, will take oath here today (Monday). His oath will be administered by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed at the Supreme Court. The event is scheduled to begin at 1pm. Dr Raja, a former bureaucrat, was chosen to head the ECP by a parliamentary committee comprising government and opposition members. The previous election commissioner, Sardar Raza Khan, retired on December 6 and the post had been vacant ever since. Justice (retd) Altaf Qureshi, the member for Punjab, had been made acting chief election commissioner in the interim. The delay in the appointment of a chief election commissioner had caused friction between the opposition and government. Debates on whom to appoint as the ECP members for Sindh and Balochistan had been ongoing for months before a consensus was finally reached.