New government mulls reserved seats for overseas Pakistanis

Tariq Butt, Correspondent

The new government is considering giving reserved seats to overseas Pakistanis instead of letting them cast their ballots through i-voting in the next general elections.

It is also in the process of taking a decision against using electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the next parliamentary polls as newly appointed Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar believes that a pilot project is necessary before putting them to use.

The new government has kicked off work on electoral reforms and sought suggestions from the coalition partners. The law ministry has started taking stock of the legislation carried out during the previous Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) regime.

Tarar said that being a poor country, it is not possible for Pakistan to set up polling stations all over the world. Even in embassies and consulates, voting on such a large scale is not possible.

Last year, the previous PTI regime had stepped up the process of introducing electoral reforms in the country.

President Arif Alvi had asked the stakeholders to prepare a prototype of the EVMs for the lawmakers.

Chairing a meeting of the subcommittee on emerging technologies on i-voting at the presidency, Alvi had underlined the need for expediting the i-voting process for overseas Pakistanis.

He had added that he would engage parliamentarians and members of other political parties for their support for the introduction of EVMs in the upcoming general elections.

In November last year, the government and its allies had pulled off a victory against the opposition during a joint sitting of parliament by succeeding in passing the bills that pave the way for holding the next general elections in the country through the use of EVMs and giving around nine million overseas Pakistanis the right to cast their ballots in the 2023 polls though i-voting.

Earlier, a report said that if Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) files a reference against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja for “incompetence” by not carrying out delimitation of constituencies on time, the move may turn out counterproductive as the Election Commission of Pakistan has credible evidence to suggest the delay occurred due to the “incompetence” of the previous government.

Tariq Butt