ECP issues general election schedule after SC order

Acting in compliance with the Supreme Court order issued earlier, the Election Commission of Pakistan on Friday issued the election schedule for the upcoming February 8 polls.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja had earlier confirmed that the election schedule would be announced tonight.

The apex court had hours earlier ordered the electoral watchdog to announce the election schedule by tonight after it suspended a Lahore High Court order that had stayed the appointment of returning officers and district returning officers from the bureaucracy.

In a notification, the ECP said the public notice would be issued by the RO on December 19 with the dates for filing nominations with the RO from Dec 20-22.

The ECP said the names of the nominated candidates would be published on Dec 23 and the last date for scrutiny of their nomination papers would be from Dec 24-30.

The last date for filing appeals against the RO’s decisions on rejecting or accepting nomination papers is January 3 with the last date for deciding the appeals by an appellate tribunal on Jan 10.

The revised list of candidates will be published on Jan 11 and the last date for withdrawing one’s candidature is Jan 12.

The ECP said election symbols will be allotted to political parties on Jan 13 with polls set for Feb 8.

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The electoral watchdog added that the election programme shall also apply to the seats reserved for women and non-Muslims in the National and provincial assemblies.

“Last date of filling of separate priority list for seats reserved for women and non-Muslims before the ROs is Dec 22,” the notification read.

On Dec 1, a senior ECP official had told Dawn the much-awaited election schedule would be announced 56 days before the date set for polling.

“You can calculate the date yourself. It would be somewhere around Dec 14,” the official had said.

According to the official, all arrangements had been made for free and fair elections after completing tasks like hearing representations against delimitation and publishing the final list of constituency delimitation in time.

The law gives six days for filing of nomination papers after the announcement of the schedule, and the list of nominated candidates is to be published the following day.

It gives eight days for scrutiny of nomination papers, four days for filing appeals against acceptance or rejection of nomination papers, and seven days for deciding the appeals. The revised list of candidates will be published the day after the decisions on appeals.

The next day is for the withdrawal of candidature and the following day, electoral symbols will be allotted to the contesting nominees and a final list is published.

The poll date has to be set not earlier than 28 days following the publication of the final list of candidates.

“The date or dates on which a poll shall, if necessary, be taken, which or the first of which shall be a date not earlier than the twenty-eighth day after the publication of the revised list of candidates,” the elections act reads.