AT long last, the country now has electoral reforms to take care of almost all issues that keep on agitating minds of different segments of the society. A joint session of Parliament on Wednesday approved 54 amendments including the one that empowers the caretaker government to take decisions and actions regarding existing bilateral agreements and projects. The adoption of the Election (Amendment) Bill 2023 came following readiness of the Government to water down amendment to Section-230 of the Election Act of 2017 following stiff opposition from its own coalition partners a day earlier.
The Parliamentary Committee on electoral reforms, under the leadership of former Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, did a great job in finalizing necessary amendments to the election law in a bid to make elections free, fair and transparent. The amendments are likely to lend credibility to the election results which remained controversial in the past because of complaints of manipulation and uncalled-for and unexplained delays in compilation and announcement of results. The new amendments in the relevant laws would go a long way in addressing such complaints and concerns but unfortunately the attention of the parliamentarians during discussion on the electoral reforms package remained focused on the one that related to giving more powers to the caretaker set up. Under the bill passed by Parliament, the President Officer shall immediately take a snapshot of the result of the count and as soon as connectivity is available and send it electronically to the Election Commission and the Returning Officer before sending the original documents under Section 90. The Returning Officer shall compile complete provisional results and shall communicate these results electronically to the Commission. In case the results are incomplete by 02.00 a.m. on the day immediately following the polling day, the Returning Officer shall communicate to the Commission provisional results as consolidated till that time along with reasons for the delay. Deployment of personnel of law-enforcing agencies also sparked controversies in the past and with this in view, the bill envisages officials of these agencies shall be posted for security duties outside the polling stations but in an emergency may be called inside by the President Officer to restore order and peaceful polling. The bill also enhances expenditure limits for candidates contesting elections for provincial and national assemblies besides putting a time limit of six month for deciding election petitions. While these amendments are welcome, one hopes the one relating to the caretaker setup would not be misused as is being feared by some law-makers.
