Failure to submit accounts: ECP may obstruct 42 parties from by-polls

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan on Thursday issued show cause notices to as many as 42 political parties for the non-compliance of legal requirement of submitting the statement of their accounts by August 29. They can be declared ineligible for issuance of an election symbol for the by-election.

The hitherto non-complying parties include Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party with ‘tree’ as its election symbol, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional with ‘rose’ its election symbol and Pakistan Rah-e-Haq Party with ‘iron’ as its election symbol and Sunni Tehreek with ‘clock’ as its election symbol.

“Indeed, any party enlisted with the Election Commission, if fails to fulfill this legal requirement, will not be qualifying to contest the upcoming bye-election on October 14, as it will not be granted symbol,” a senior official at the Election Commission maintained.

Under Section 210 of the Elections Act, 2017, a political party shall in such a manner, as may be, prescribed, submit to the Election Commission within 60 days from the close of financial year, a consolidated statement of its accounts audited by a charted accountant on Form-D, containing annual income and expenditure, sources of its funds, assets and liabilities.

The Election Commission says that the statement shall be delivered through an office-bearer of the relevant party, duly authorized by the party leader. As per provisions of Rule 156 of the Elections Rules, 2017, statements received through post, fax, courier service or any other mode is not entertainable.

In case of failure to comply with the legal requirement, a party is required to show cause as to why it may not be declared ineligible to obtain an election symbol for bye-election. A political party’s reply has to reach the Election Commission within a week of the issuance of the notice by the Election Commission, failing which the Election Commission shall take further necessary action under the law.

According to the Election Commission website, the number of enlisted political parties is 122. However, 107 were allotted election symbols for the general election 2018. Meanwhile, The Election Commission has released statistics about the upcoming bye-election in 11 constituencies of the National Assembly and 26 constituencies of the provincial assemblies. The total number of registered voters in these constituencies is 9691728 and of these, 5338688 are males and 4353040 females.

For male voters, there are 2303 polling stations for males, 2153 for females, 3343 are combined both for male and female voters, whereas the number of improvised polling stations is 330 while the number of polling booths is 22756 and of these, 12327 are for males and 10509 for female voters. The total number of presiding officers is 7804, assistant presiding officers is 22736 and there are 22736 polling officers.