ISLAMABAD, 13 August — Chief Election Commissioner Irshad Hasan Khan emphatically affirmed yesterday that the elections will be held on Oct. 10 and all political parties, which fulfill required conditions, would take part in it, as there would be no possibility of holding non-party based elections. "Let me announce categorically that these would be party based elections, and if the political parties are denied their right to participate in it by declaring the partyless elections, you would not see me as chief election commissioner," he said.
He was addressing a crowded press conference here at the Election House. Members of the EC and Secretary EC Hassan Muhammad flanked him. Disclosing that the Election Commission has asked about availability of troops to be deployed for maintaining law and order on the election days, he hoped that the chief executive and the president would announce the date of elections for the upper house (Senate) in a day or two, as the process of filing nomination papers would start from Aug. 15.
"For all fairness, I feel that the chief executive would announce the date of elections for Senate in a day or two, which will be held after the completion of elections for the national and provincial assemblies," said the CEC. Irshad said in the light of the Supreme Court judgment, the dates may include also the schedule of all elections since the process of filing nomination papers for the National and Provincial Assemblies starts from Aug. 15, it would be expedient that the whole election schedule is announced by tomorrow (Tuesday).
Meanwhile, the registration process through well-documented method has reduced the mushroom growth of political parties from that of around 350 in 1997 to just 99 this time, which have now applied for registration with the Election Commission. "In all, 99 political parties have submitted their documents with the Election Commission so far to fulfill the requirements under Political Parties Order 200," said Irshad.
However, surprisingly only 71 applications have been received by the commission for allotment of election symbols. The CEC said under PPO 2002 the political parties were required to submit the printed copies of their constitution and details regarding intra-party elections to the Election Commission by yesterday.
