Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Additional Secretary Fida Muhammad Khan said on Wednesday that Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms and other forums are trying to bring reforms in the electoral process, but Democracy Reporting International (DRI) had created the impression that it alone is doing all the whole work.

Khan said DRI is intellectually terrorising ECP. He was speaking at the programme of German think tank DRI on the topic of Assessment of Local Elections 2015, findings and recommendations. Khan said ECP welcomes the suggestions and recommendations of all observing and monitoring bodies. “We have made formal SOP how to monitor the election process. We motivated different organisation and they suggested improvements.” “We would request our partners be serious with their suggestion and recommendations, trying to achieve the positive results. DRI invited ECP and in the invitation it was mentioned Ishtiaq Ahmad Khan as chairman of the organisation, who retired in November 2014 as secretary of ECP and even chairman position did not existed in the ECP,” he said.

Khan became emotional and said that in the local government elections all over the country there were more than 67,000 polling stations and DRI sent only five teams for monitoring and observation of the process. “They should not believe in hearsay and be practical,” he said. Team leader of DRI Hassan Nasir said sorry for a clerical mistake for not mentioning the proper name and designation on the invitation for the seminar. Sarwar Bari of FAFEN criticised the way Khan responded and said, “I was not expecting such an emotional response from a senior ECP official. FAFEN highlighted thousands of irregularities during general elections of 2013.”

Earlier, speaking at the event, Hunnah Roberts said that every citizen has the right and opportunity to use his/her right to vote, without any discussion. DRI demanded fresh delimitations with opportunity for public involvement and full transparency and information available. It said the code of conduct be revised in consultation with political parties to remove prohibitions on campaigning by government officials in a non-official capacity. Candidate nomination oaths should be amended so that freedom of religion is not compromised during the nomination process.