ISLAMABAD: The government and the opposition have suggested three names each for appointments of officials of the Election Commission of Pakistan from each of the four provinces.
The names would be submitted at the speaker’s office on Friday, while a parliamentary committee meeting would also be held in this regard at 10am on Monday. All the commission’s members were retired on June 13, 2016, after which the ECP had become inactive.
Constitutionally, the members should be appointed within 45 days. It has been 39 days and the members could not be appointed so far. Now, the government and the opposition have finalised three names which would be submitted in the speaker’s office.
Earlier, Opposition Leader Syed Khurshid Shah met with Federal Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Senator Ishaq Dar to discuss the nomination of the officials on the vacant seats in the commission. They discussed a range of issues and reaffirmed to solve the issue before the deadline set by the court.
They had previously met on July 12 and July 17 to discuss the issue and agreed that the officials would be selected on merit to enable transparent and free and fair elections. The meeting came at a crucial time as the Supreme Court had intervened and ordered the government to appoint the officials by July 27.
The apex court had taken a suo motu notice and issued the directive, after the five-year tenure of the four members of the ECP had ended. Senator Dar would likely to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and brief him over the talks on the issue.
The minister is also expected to meet the opposition leader again on Friday. Answering to a question regarding names of the officials suggested, he said that the names were in sealed letters and would be made public on July 24.
