ISLAMABAD: Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar revealed that government is seriously considering amending election laws for sake of transparent elections in country. “We are carefully examining that at least those amendments should be included which already have consensus” he said addressing stakeholder’s conference on electoral transparency jointly hosted by Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), Coalition for Elections and Democracy (CED) and Fredrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.

Muttahida Qaum Movement-Pakistan’s Mustafa Kamal, Pakistan Peoples Party leader Taj Haider, Balochistan Awami Party Senator Anwar Kakar, Fredrick Neumann’s Birgit Lamm, PILDAT’s Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, CPDI’s Mukhtar Ahmed Ali and others attended. Law Minister said unfortunately, successive governments did not give importance to Local Government elections which are key for democracy and democratic process.  Senator Haider said that census and delimitations are key ingredients for free and fair elections in any country but no one talks about these issues.

Kamal said that his party boycotted Local Government elections in Karachi due to lack of transparent census. He said that there are serious flaws in delimitations in Karachi as some union councils have 20,000 voters while some have 90,000 voters. He said that in any census, houses are counted first and unfortunately, house count is based on flawed system. Senator Kakar was of view that holding elections in two provinces would trigger another crisis. He said we have two options one is holding elections as per rule and other is managing crises. 

Published in The Daily National Courier, March, 15 2023

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