ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to do away with the UNDP’s Results Management System (RMS), construct its own buildings in the provincial capitals to store election material, set up its own printing press and launch a comprehensive training programme for election staff.According to ECP sources, these
By our correspondents
July 29, 2015
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to do away with the UNDP’s Results Management System (RMS), construct its own buildings in the provincial capitals to store election material, set up its own printing press and launch a comprehensive training programme for election staff. According to ECP sources, these decisions are the immediate outcome of the Judicial Commission’s report on the 2013 elections.The commission is now preparing a package for legal and constitutional changes in the light of the JC report. The package will be forwarded to the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms for constitutional and legal amendments.The report had mentioned the failure to establish and use an effective Results Management System (RMS), which was described in P-71 of the ECP’s ROs handbook in these terms: “Efficient Results Management System is considered a hallmark for free, fair and transparent elections.” This system did not work and led to suspicions of rigging, especially as the RMS was meant to deal with the important Form XIV statement of count. After the Judicial Commission report, the ECP decided to do away with the failed RMS, which was sponsored and run by the UNDP. The sources said the commission had also decided to construct it own stores in all the provincial capitals for storage of election material like vote bags, Form XIV and Form XV.Presently, the election material is stored with the government treasury, where required care of the material is not possible. It is said that the ECP already had some spare piece of lands in Lahore and Karachi where the ECP stores would be built.For Peshawar and Quetta, the ECP is of opinion that land would be purchased and stores built there to protect and secure the election material. Similarly, because of the controversies about the printing press, excess ballots and delayed printing of ballots, the commission decided to set up its own printing press.The JC report had stated that the decision to rely on only four printing presses was fraught with danger, especially due to the lack of capacity of the Lahore Printing Press. It was also known according to the PTI, CW 4 Moosa Effendi that the Printing Corporation of Pakistan had no automated system for numbering which had to be done manually and therefore extra personnel would most likely be needed for this purpose. The JC report added that an extra press such as the Postal Foundation should have been contracted from the start and a sufficient number of personnel for manual numbering and binding should have been hired at the start of printing. Regarding the use of ink for thumb impressions in the future elections, the ECP has decided to use the indelible ink instead of the magnetic ink which has proved to be of no consequence in the 2013 elections. Owing to the lapses on the part of the election staff and returning officer, the ECP has also decided that instead of leaving the training of the election staff to others, including NGOs and foreign donors, the ECP would now itself do this job in a comprehensive manner. The report of the Inquiry Commission probing the 2013 General Elections had pointed out nine major flaws in the planning and execution of polls by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the body’s non-compliance of electoral laws. The 237-page report discussed in detail the ECP’s role in conducting the 2013 General Elections and raised serious questions about the ECP’s performance in planning and executing the elections. “The 2013 General Elections were not a snap election. There was plenty of time for the ECP to organise the elections which, during its five-year tenure, is the single-most important task which it must prepare for and undertake. It had ample experience of past elections. The evidence, however, before the commission has suggested poor planning on the part of the ECP,” the report read. The report particularly mentioned nine examples of poor planning by the ECP for polls including lack of a formula for determining excess ballots, the decision to rely on only four printing presses, belated shifting of ballot papers from one press to other, failure to develop effective voter verification method, failure to establish and use an effective results management system, late provision of election material to some polling stations and lack of its own storage space.