HRCP, Fafen await ECP’s approval to monitor LG polls

Karachi
Though the first phase of local government elections in eight districts of Northern Sindh is just over a week away, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has yet to issue accreditation passes to independent election observers looking to monitor the polls.
In the first phase, scheduled for October 31, the polls will held in Khairpur, Sukkur, Ghotki, Larkana, Shikarpur, Kamber-Shahdadkot, Jacobabad and Kashmore districts, where 4.6 million people will exercise their right to vote to elect more than 10,000 local bodies’ candidates.
The two independent watchdog bodies – the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) — had asked for the issuance of accreditation cards to their office bearers. However, so far, the ECP has not issued the relevant documents.
According to the ECP Handbook, issuance of accreditation to independent election observers is the responsibility of the commission.
Asad Iqbal Butt, the HRCP’s vice-chairperson, confirmed that the ECP hadn’t issued accreditation passes for domestic observers in the eight districts of Northern Sindh. “The ECP officials in Sindh are making excuses that they haven’t received the relevant documents from Islamabad,” he said while talking to The News. “Now we are in for more delay due to the Muharram holidays.”
Sarwar Bari, an official of Fafen, also expressed similar concerns. He remarked that such delays had become an almost habitual matter with the ECP, as the commission had become prone to issuing accreditation passes to independent election observers only one or two days before polling day.
Besides the independent observers, the Karachi leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have also criticised the ECP for restricting independent observers from monitoring the local government elections. In a press statement issued on Thursday, PPP’s Karachi president Syed Najmi Alam and other leaders said free and fair elections are a right of the people and this right could not be suppressed. They said independent groups such as the HRCP and Fafen simply monitored the process of elections to see if the elections were conducted in a free, fair and transparent manner.
However, said the PPP leader, the ECP was restricting Fafen and HRCP from playing their role as independent observers and this would further raise questions over the impartiality of the election commission at a time when all leading political parties were already questioning its credibility.
The PPP leaders said the ECP should review its policies and not obstruct efforts for independent monitoring of elections, or else the party reserved a right to protest against the commission’s “undemocratic” policies.