Pakistan’s election fee has warned that the final elections could must be delayed if the method of fixing electoral symbols doesn’t cease, asserting that it couldn’t hold making alterations with the February 8 polls simply across the nook.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday that after the allotment of the election symbols, political actors are “having them modified via varied boards”, the Dawn newspaper reported.
“If the method of fixing the election symbols continues in the identical manner, there’s a concern of election delay as a result of the poll papers must be reprinted, for which era is already restricted, and then again, the particular paper obtainable for the poll papers may also be misplaced,” the ECP assertion mentioned.
The electoral watchdog mentioned that following the allotment of election symbols, it had already ordered the printing of poll papers to the three printing companies, and the printing work had begun.
According to The Express Tribune newspaper, the ECP’s assertion got here in response to the requests made by political events and candidates to vary their electoral symbols and the purposes pending earlier than the upper courts.
Recently, the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) central polls in cost, Senator Taj Haider, wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), urging the ECP to vary the electoral symbols of no less than seven of its candidates as that they had not been allotted the get together’s ‘arrow’ image. He added that the returning officers declared the get together’s unbiased candidates.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Secretary General Nayyar Hussain Bukhari raised the problem, saying the matter can be taken to courtroom.
Similarly, a petition of jailed former prime minister and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) get together’s founding chairman Imran Khan in opposition to the rejection of his nomination papers remains to be pending with the Lahore High Court, the report mentioned.
Stressing the wastage of paper, the ECP estimated that 2,070 tons can be used for printing the poll papers within the 2024 polls, a a number of enhance from the 800 tons of paper used within the 2018 elections, the report mentioned. It added that whereas 220 million poll papers had been printed in 2018, a complete of 260 million are being printed this 12 months.
According to the report, cash-strapped Pakistan, which is already going through an acute steadiness of fee disaster, imports paper.
The ECP fingers out electoral symbols to political events and candidates forward of elections. The symbols seem on poll papers together with names, however over 40 p.c of Pakistan’s 241 million inhabitants are illiterate, making the images additional necessary for recognition, the report mentioned.
Imran Khan’s PTI get together denied the cricket bat image that had change into synonymous with the previous worldwide cricketer. Pakistan’s election fee has rejected his and his get together leaders’ nomination papers.