Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: European Union (EU) announced 15 million Euro for five year programme for carrying out the electoral reforms in Pakistan with the sole aim to seek feedback of stakeholders on new proposed programme in support of elections and electoral reforms.
This announcement was made by Bernard Francois, Head of Cooperation, Delegation of the EU to Pakistan along with Anne Kofoed, Head of Governance and Education Cooperation and Danuta El Ghuff, Development Programme Manager, EU at a consultation with Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), parliamentarians and civil society’s representatives.

Bernard Francois said that main objective of this discussion is to seek feedback of stakeholders on new proposed programme in support of elections and electoral reforms.

Anne Kofoed said that electoral reforms is an ambitious task and the consultation process is quite constructive with the stakeholders, parliamentarians, experts and representative of the civil society. Final papers on consultation would be submitted by 28th April, to the Headquarters of the European Commission for approval.
Senator Saeed Ghani of PPP said that a meeting of Parliamentary Affairs, which will be held on 2nd May, in which observers, senior lawyers, will be consulted for the improvement of electoral process. Sher Afghan, Additional Secretary, Tanning, Research and Evaluation,

ECP said that each and every CNIC holder is included in electoral rolls that were prepared for the local bodies elections.

He said that those women who do not want their photographs on their CNIC, they too registered themselves as voter. He said that for sensitizing gender awareness, assistance will be sought from media too.
He said that code of conduct is not the law and it has not any legal binding. He said it is practice globally that the top leadership of the political parties sign the code of conduct.

EU Representatives said that the next phase of EU programme will attempt to reinforce high level political dialogue as part of strategy. Support to civil society and media will be emphasized in future electoral support advocacy measures.

To achieve long lasting impact of electoral reforms, future support is likely to ensure ECP’s own long-term capacity development initiatives, electoral institutions and process as part of broad political and institutional reforms that could address genuine governance concerns.

In the consultation areas which were selected for the EU electoral assistance included planning and management of electoral operations, training of ECP staff and other actors involved in the electoral process.