Federal Cabinet approves draft Electoral Reforms Bill
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Cabinet Tuesday approved the construction of 46 modern hospitals in different parts of the country on emergency basis to provide the latest healthcare facilities to the poor.
Each of these hospitals would have 100 to 500 beds. The cabinet, which met here with Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif in the chair, had a marathon meeting where a 33-point agenda was discussed and 30 points were adopted.
The cabinet approved issuance of additional funds for treatment of patients suffering Electoral Reforms, he said, would mull over the required constitutional amendments before presentation of the reforms bill to Parliament for approval.
He said the recommendations envisaged total financial, administrative and functional autonomy for the ECP. It would be empowered to take disciplinary action against officials deputed from other departments and ministries for election purpose.
The commission would be required to prepare a comprehensive action plan six months ahead of elections to seek input and objections from the political parties and candidates. A formal complaint system, he added, would be introduced to lodge complaints about malpractices before elections and their redress.
The law and justice minister said votes would be counted and result compiled at the polling station, and form-14 containing the result would be transmitted to the returning officer and the ECP through a mobile application to ensure prompt transmission of results.
In case victory margin was less than 5 per cent or 10,000 votes then recounting would be mandatory. A uniform system of printing of ballot papers would be introduced for all constituencies.
Under the reforms package, a citizen would be automatically registered as a voter once he or she was issued a Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) and no application would be required for the purpose.
The minister said special measures would be undertaken to encourage enlistment of women voters in case there was difference of more than 10 per cent in the number of male and female votes.
All the political parties would have to issue 5 per cent tickets to female candidates on general seats. Disabled voters would be provided postal ballot facility. He said that delimitation of constituencies would be carried out after every 10 years.
Zahid Hamid said since consensus could not be reached on Articles 62 and 63, so the issue of their implementation was not touched in the draft legislation. There is also a proposal to enforce criteria for registration of political parties with the ECP.
The caretaker government would not have powers to make long-term decisions or policies. The report of cabinet committee constituted for the people affected by Indian firing on the Working Boundary (WB) was approved and it was decided that Rs500,000 compensation would be given to the heirs of each person martyred in Indian firing in Sialkot and Narowal sectors and Rs150,000 for treatment of each seriously injured.
Moreover, 50 bunkers would be built along the WB for provision of shelters to the vulnerable so that they could take refuge there during shelling. State Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb told the media that the registered Afghan nationals would be allowed to live in Pakistan by December 31, 2017 while the interior ministry would continue registration of the unregistered ones. It was also decided that the Afghans cross-border movement would now be regulated through the visa regime and their entry passes would be linked with it.