Election

IT seems that the issue of appointing two new members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has run into a dead-end after the refusal of the chief election commissioner (CEC) to administer oath to them on grounds of unconstitutionality.

Both Khalid Mehmood Siddiqui from Sindh and Balochistan’s Munir Ahmad Kakar must have returned home red-faced following the decision by retired Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza.

At heart lies the Supreme Court 2013 ruling which forbids the president from appointing the members of the ECP including the CEC, without fulfilling certain criteria. Now according to the procedure, the new members must be appointed within 45 days after the retirement of previous members in consultation with the prime minister and the leader of the opposition.

After the two leaders reach consensus, the matter is referred to the president for his consent. Unfortunately, under the current political antagonism and bitterness between the ruling party and the opposition the issue has been pending for the past seven months.

Highlighting deep divisions, even the parliamentary committee failed to reach a consensus, though both the prime minister and the opposition leader sent three names each.

In reaching an amicable agreement both the prime minister and the opposition leader now need to show political sagacity. With the country facing numerous internal and external challenges, a further delay in resolving this issue is unacceptable.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday announced holding the by-election in PS-11 Larkana constituency of Sindh Assembly on October 17.

According to the schedule announced by ECP, the candidates could submit their nomination papers for the by-election from 13 to 15 September, according to the schedule.

However, the list of the candidates will be displayed on September 15.

Earlier in August, the Supreme Court had disqualified Member Sindh Assembly Moazam Ali elected from PS-11 constituency of Larkana.

A three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed had ordered re-election in the provincial constituency.

Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) member Moazam Ali was elected from PS-11 (Larkana-II) constituency in July 2018 general elections.

The bench had disqualified Moazam Ali for failing to declare his assets and directed the ECP to issue schedule for re-election in the Sindh Assembly constituency.

Nida Khuhro of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had challenged the election of the GDA member.

ISLAMABAD – The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday notified Naeema Kishwar Khan of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly’s member-elect on seat reserved for women from tribal districts.

On the other hand the people of tribal districts have sharply criticized this decision of JUI-F leadership as according to them the MPA-elected Naeema Kishwar was not from the tribal region.

Talking to The Nation the people hailing from erstwhile Fata said that the decision taken by the JUI-F leadership was entirely against the wishes of tribal people as once again they were not given their right.

They added that there were many intelligent and highly qualified women from erstwhile Fata who have the ability to speak for the rights of tribal people and represent them in assemblies were ignored and sidelined.

They said that she was imposed on them and they would not accept this decision They said that JUI-F in their campaigns had talked about then protection of rights of tribal people but as the time has come to serve the tribal people, they ignored the local leadership and elected a woman who does not know about the Fata issues.

Party’s decision invites ire of tribesmen

They lamented that the tribal people were betrayed by JUI-F.

The sources close to JUI-F revealed that the there was an internal rift surfaced in JUI-F central leadership on the move of electing Naeema Kishwar Khan on the reserved seat from erstwhile Fata.

According to the sources, Mufti Abdul Shakoor, the JUI-F’s chief of tribal districts and Member of National Assembly (MNA) was not happy on the decision of electing Naeema Kishwar on reserved seat because he wanted to elect a woman who was hailing from tribal region in order to represent the tribal people in actual meanings.

Sources further revealed that JUI-F chief Maulana Fazl Rehman personally intervened and played his role in electing Naeema Kishwar which was opposed by locals and some members inside party.

Under Article 103(3) sub-clause C of the Constitution, the members to fill seats reserved for women and non-Muslims, which are allocated to a province, shall be elected through proportional representation system of political parties’ lists of candidates on the basis of total number of general seats won by each political party from the province concerned and on the bases of this JUI-F got a single reserve seat.

The newly-elected Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) on reserved seat, Naeema Kishwar Khan is living in Mardan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and has remained MPA on the ticket of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal from 2002 to 2007 and served as an MNA from 2013 to 2018.

ISLAMABAD – The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has taken a serious notice of violation of its code of conduct in NA 205 Gotki, Sindh  by-election.

The ECP has directed the Returning Officer (RO) and District Returning Officer (DRO) to obstruct the members of Assembly who are visiting the constituency and violating the code of conduct.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday directed all successful candidates of tribal districts of ex-Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to submit details of expenses incurred by them in elections.

According to a press release issued by the Commission on Monday, the successful candidates of general and reserved seats have been asked to submit the details to their respective returning officers by 30th of this month.

The Commission will not issue official notification to the candidates till submission of election expenditure.

ISLAMABAD: Though there are a total of nine contesting candidates for the keenly-awaited bye-poll bout in NA-205, Ghotki-II, the real contest is expected to be on July 23 (today) between two Mahars, tossed up by PPP and other being backed by PTI. According to the ECP’s data, there are 360,875 registered voters in this constituency and of these, 204,980 are males and remaining 155,895 are females.

ISLAMABAD: Nearly 27.6 per cent of the registered voters in seven districts and frontier regions of the formerly Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) went to the first-ever elections to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly seats, marking the completion of their constitutional merger with the province a year after the passage of the 25th Constitution Amendment.

The historic elections in the areas that were embroiled in conflict for almost two decades remained peaceful and free from any major controversy over the quality of the electoral process, says a preliminary report issued by the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) on Sunday.

However, the report says these elections did not yield a turnout that was expected, which remained lower by 6.3pc in comparison to the turnout for the National Assembly seats on July 25 last year.

Partly due to warm weather that discouraged people from going out of their homes in the afternoon in some constituencies, the reason for the low turnout may also be attributed to an increase in the number of total voters registered in these districts by 285,976 in June.

A majority of these voters may just be part of the diaspora from these districts who are now residing in other parts of Pakistan, and only allocated to their permanent addresses in compliance with the provisions of the Elections Act, 2017. If the turnout is calculated on the basis of the registered voters prior to this addition, it remained almost the same as it was on July 25, 2018.

A gender disaggregation of turnout suggests almost 20pc of women voters turned out to vote in this election as compared to 23.8pc on July 25, last year. Similarly, around 33pc of male voters voted in this election as compared to 40.3pc in the last general elections. These turnout figures are, however, based on information received from 14 constituencies.

The election followed a competitive campaign with almost all major political parties vying for majority of the 16 PA seats. Supervised directly by the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) officials as district returning officers (DROs) and retuning officers (ROs), the crucial election processes before and on the polling day were largely managed in accordance with the provisions of the Elections Act, 2017.

Fafen had deployed a total of 953 trained observers (858 men and 95 women) to observe the voting process at 1,617 (85pc of the total) polling stations and counting at half of them.

Amid apparently misplaced security fears, the overall environment on the polling day remained peaceful with the observers reporting three incidents of violence in Khyber, Mohmand and Kurram leading to interruptions to the voting ­process.

In PK-105 Khyber-I and PK-109 Kurram-I, the observers reported clashes between workers of rival candidates. Two persons were reportedly injured due to an incident of firing outside a polling station in PK-103 Mohmand-I. A media outlet also reported an incident of firing on an independent candidate in South Waziristan. However, Fafen could not confirm the report through its observers.

The conduct of the polling staff and security officials was observed to generally have remained in line with the provisions of the law and their respective codes. However, the observers reported interruptions to the voting process at some polling stations due to inadequately trained staff and shortage of election material.

In addition, the observers also reported certain irregularities of electoral law, rules and codes from multiple constituencies such as canvassing and campaigning outside polling stations, oversized polling stations, provision of transportation to voters by candidates, etc.

Notwithstanding concerns raised by some major political parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party and Awami National Party, over the fairness of the electoral process before election as well as the deployment of security forces inside stations, the ECP appeared to have asserted its authority by timely redressing complaints by political parties and contesting candidates for changing ROs and AROs in four constituencies, and also issuing orders to the provincial administration for the release of two detained candidates contesting elections from PK-113 South Waziristan-I and PK-114 South Waziristan-II as independents.

The ECP had set up 1,896 polling stations for 2,798,277 registered voters, averaging one polling station for 1,476 voters.

PESHAWAR: While voting for 16 general seats in the first-ever provincial elections in the seven tribal districts and six towns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday remained peaceful amid elaborate security arrangements, the turnout of voters, especially women voters, in some districts remained low.

Women in some parts of erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) according to their tribal traditions were barred from casting their vote though polling that had started at 8am continued till 5pm without a break.

Army troops along with the Levies and Khasadars were deployed outside all 1,897 polling stations set up by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Besides, security personnel were deployed inside those polling stations that had been declared highly sensitive.

With the results still being compiled at polling stations, independent candidates have been showing impressive performance as six of them were in the lead according to unofficial results.

Among those fielded by different parties, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) candidates were leading on four seats, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) on two seats each and the Awami National Party (ANP) on one seat.

Earlier, ECP director Chaudhry Nadeem Qasim told the media outside the ECP headquarters in Islamabad that one polling agent of each candidate had been asked to be present at their polling stations at the time of vote count and sign Form 45. He said the ECP had given proper training to the presiding officers regarding Form 45. “Results will be compiled on completing the counting process and reaching of the Form 45 to the returning officers,” he said, adding that the ROs had been asked not to announce the result of their respective constituency till receiving of 100 percent results.

He said vote count had been started soon after the completion of polling process. Legally, he said, the results were disseminated through an electronic method but there were network and night travel issues in some tribal districts.

Not a single incident of severe nature happened in any tribal district during the polling process though four complaints of minor nature were received during the day, the ECP director added.

In all, 285 candidates, including two women, contested the 16 general seats of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly to represent three constituencies each of Bajaur (PK-100 to 102) and Khyber (PK-105 to 107) districts; two each of Mohmand (PK-103 and 104), Kurram (PK-108 and 109), North Waziristan (PK-111 and 112) and South Waziristan (PK-113 and 114); and one each of Orakzai (PK-110) district and ex-Frontier regions (PK-115).

Besides the nominees of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Peoples Party- Parliamentarians (PPP-P), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Qaumi Watan Party (QWP), several independent candidates contested the polls.

Khyber

In Sheen Qamar area of Bara, Khyber district, local elders of the Zaodin Zakhakhel tribe decided to keep women away from the polling stations reportedly due to the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras there. Saadullah Khan, an area resident, told Dawn that the number of registered female voters in Sheen Qamar was around 2,000 but none of them was allowed to cast her vote despite some resistance from locals.

The only woman contestant for Khyber-I (PK-106) seat was Naheed Afridi fielded by the ANP.

The overall turnout at around 345 polling stations, both male and female, was lower than expected as most of the registered women voters stayed away from casting their votes in Bara, Jamrud and Landi Kotal.

Heela Shinwari, who exercised her right to vote for the first time, said that lack of knowledge about casting of votes was one of the main reasons for low turnout of female voters.

Female voting at the polling station, which was set up at the government higher secondary school, was suspended for a brief time when rival candidates objected to presence of some male voters in the polling area.

Shareef Khan, a resident of Tirah, told Dawn that the polling remained peaceful but the turnout was not up to their expectations.

Mohmand

In Mohmand district, both male and female voters came out from their homes and cast vote to elect their representative for the three seats of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

For the first time, women were seen casting their votes in the Safi tehsil of the tribal district. Tight security arrangements were made by the district administration with support of local police and Levies and Khassadar forces. Around 1,700 personnel were deployed besides monitoring of election activities through CCTV cameras at all the 194 polling stations to ensure free and fair election.

Kurram

As in Kurram district, too, the turnout of voters was low, announcements from local mosques urged voters to use their right to vote and visit the polling stations. Both men and women cast their vote.

The only woman contestant for Kurram-II (PK-109) seat was Ms Malasa fielded by the JI.

North, South Waziristan

In North Waziristan, participation of voters was low apparently due to curfew and enforcement of Section 144 of the criminal procedure code during the pre-election days.

No incident of violence was reported from South Waziristan as polling remained peaceful in the tribal district.

Orakzai

A vehicle taking voters to a polling station in Orakzai district fell into a ravine, leaving two people dead and eight others injured.

Election material was dispatched to all the polling stations in the constituency in time and no complaint about any shortcomings had been received from any area. However, according to reports, turnout of female voters remained low.

Bajaur

Voting for the three provincial assembly seats in Bajaur tribal district was held peacefully.

The Election Commission of Pakistan had established 338 polling stations for the three constituencies in which 67 had been declared sensitive and 27 most sensitive. Subsequently, strict security arrangements were witnessed at all polling stations across the district to thwart any unpleasant incident during the polling. None of the polling stations that Dawn visited was found crowded during the day.

Ex-Frontier region

Polling at 10 polling stations in Betanni tribal subdivision (PK-115) ended peacefully amid tight security on Saturday evening.

A rush of voters was seen at the polling stations in the morning and just before closing time, as people used their right of franchise for the first time for a seat of the provincial assembly. Women voters also came out of their houses and went to polling stations to cast their votes.

Terming the first-ever election in the tribal district a historic event, KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan congratulated the nation. Secretary for home and tribal affairs Ikramullah Khan told Dawn that elections were held in a peaceful atmosphere, no election-related violence was reported from any of the 16 constituencies.

Unofficial results

An independent candidate Shafiq Afridi unofficially won on Khyber-I (PK-105) seat by securing 18,024 votes. Another independent candidate Bilawal Afridi was leading on Khyber-II (PK-106) seat. Former lawmaker Hameedullah Afridi was in the lead on Khyber-III (PK-107).

PTI candidates were leading on Bajaur-I (PK-100), Kurram-II, (PK-109) North Waziristan-I (PK-111) and South Waziristan-II (PK-114).

JI candidates Sahibzada Haroon Rasheed and Sirajuddin Khan were leading on Bajaur-II (PK-101) and Bajaur-III (PK-102) seats. ANP and PTI candidates had a tough contest on Mohmand-I (PK-103) seat, with ANP’s Nisar Mohmand having a slight lead over the other. JUI-F candidates were in the lead on Mohmand-II (PK-104) and South Waziristan-I (PK-113) seats. An independent candidate Jameel Khan was in the lead on Kurram-I (PK-108) against the JUI-F candidate.

LANDI KOTAL: Khyber tribal district’s police officer Mohammad Hussain on Monday issued a security advisory to all the candidates contesting elections for the three provincial assembly seats, cautioning them about urgent revision of security protocols owing to emerging threat perception in order to ensure safe and peaceful conduct of polls on July 20.

It sought cooperation of the contesting candidates in intimating to the local police station a day in advance about the candidate’s own campaign-related activities and at least three days in advance about that of any main leader of a political party.

The candidates were advised to restrict their movement at unpredictable timings and routes, and security guards and police protection provided to them as per rules should be utilised and sensitised time and again both for the safety and security of candidates and general public.

The candidates were further advised to depute at least eight to 10 local volunteers at the site of a public gathering during the campaign as such people knew well the local population.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2019

GHOTKI – The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has declared all poling stations of NA-205 Ghotki as sensitive for by-election to be held on July 18.

According to the sources of ECP, a total of 289 polling stations and 869 polling booths would be established in the constituency, out of which 164 polling stations were declared as sensitive and 125 polling stations as extremely sensitive. The total number of registered voters in the constituency is 360,875 including 204891 male and 155835 female voters.

The whole polling process would be monitored by DRO, RO, ARO, Commissioner Sukkur and DIG Sukkur besides frequent visits to various polling stations by DC Ghotki Muhammad Khalid Saleem and SSP Ghotki Farrukh Ali Lanjar to make the election transparent.

NA-205 comprises Khangarh and Ghotki which was lying vacant following the death of Federal Minister Sardar Ali Muhammad Khan Mehr.

Currently, the prominent candidates among 9 contestants in the arena are PPP’s Sardar Muhammad Bukhsh Khan Mehr and independent Sardar Ali Muhammad Khan Mehr.

Published in The Nation

BAJAUR: The Election Commission of Pakistan Thursday issued final lists of contesting candidates for three seats of provincial assembly in Bajaur district.

Talking to media men here District Election Commissioner Bajaur Parvez Iqbal said that as per the final list total 39 candidates including 12 from PK-100, 15 from PK-101 and 12 from PK-102 Bajaur-III would fight the electoral battle on July 2. The official told electoral symbols have also been allotted to the final contesting candidates.

He said that earlier total 87 candidates have filed their nomination papers for three seats of provincial assembly in Bajaur; however, he said that 48 candidates have later taken back their papers.

According to the Election commission of Pakistan scheduled issued few days back, the first ever provincial assembly election in merged tribal districts would be held on July 2.

ISLAMABAD: Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has started the process of receiving nomination papers from the candidates for elections on 16 seats of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in tribal districts.

According to the election schedule, the candidates can submit their nomination papers with the returning officers till Saturday. Scrutiny of the nomination papers will be held by 18th of this month.

Appeals against decisions of the returning officers regarding acceptance or rejection of the nomination papers can be filed by May 22.

The candidates can withdraw their nomination papers by 29th of this month whilst on the same day, the revised list of candidates will be published.

Election symbol to the contesting candidates will be allotted on May 30. Polling will be held in the tribal districts on the second of July.

ISLAMABAD: The Senate, short of quorum, on Wednesday passed the elections (amendment) bill, removing the last legal hitch in the way of upcoming provincial assembly polls for 16 general seats in the erstwhile Fata.

The bill to amend Section 20 of the Elections Act, 2017, has already been passed by the National Assembly to give a legal cover to the delimitation carried out by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) allocating one seat to the scattered frontier regions, in order to avert the disenfranchisement of these populations.

The new Sub-section 2-A has been inserted into Section 20, and reads: “For the purpose of delimiting constituencies, for the general seats of the provincial assembly of Khyber Pakh­tunkhwa for tribal areas, two or more separate areas may be grouped into one constituency for their elections to be held in 2019 and by-elections related therein, and thereafter this sub-section shall stand omitted.”

Earlier, an ordinance to this effect had been promulgated by the president on Jan 1, a day before the ECP notified the draft delimitation proposal for the tribal districts.

The bill was passed shortly after the opposition parties staged a walkout from the house to protest the absence of Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in order to explain the controversial remarks Prime Minister Imran Khan made in Iran.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Azam Khan Swati had a Foreign Office brief and was ready to respond on behalf of the foreign minister regarding the statement the prime minister made in Tehran that terrorists had in the past used Pakistan’s soil to undertake attacks in Iran.

The opposition benches did not allow Mr Swati to respond, however, and insisted that, first, Prime Minister Imran Khan should have been present in the house to defend his statement, and second, if not, then Mr Qureshi should at least have been present as “the statement had wide implications.”

Mr Swati insisted that there was no such requirement in the law and under the principle of collective responsibility, he had the right to respond on behalf of his Cabinet colleague.

Senate Chairman Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani also upheld the position taken by the minister, prompting the opposition to stage a walkout.

Soon after, Leader of the House Senator Shibli Faraz criticised the disruption of house proceedings more than once within a week and blamed former chairman of the Senate and PPP Senator Mian Raza Rabbani for the mess. He said Mr Rabbani used to run the Senate like a military academy and was very strict in allowing points of order during proceedings, but regretted that his (Mr Rabbani) standards appear to have changed as now, disruption starts soon after the recitation from the Holy Quran.

“It must be seen how much the opposition is serious about the running of the house,” he said. Mr Faraz also said that one or two “other opposition lawmakers” were also instrumental in planning these walkouts — a statement that was endorsed by his party colleague Senator Noman Wazir.

The chair, in his ruling, said that the opposition benches should propose an amendment to the constitutional provision of collective responsibility. He also said that not a single prime minister had ever attended the ‘Zero Hour’ since rules were amended to bind the chief executive to respond to senators’ answers.

Earlier, former Senate chairman Mr Rabbani said that the prime minister should himself have come to the house to explain his statement. He also read out Rule 61 (2-A) of the rules of procedure and conduct of business in the Senate, under which the prime minister is to respond to questions related to him once in a week during Zero Hour.

Nauman Wazir of the PTI pointed out that words like ‘whenever possible’ and ‘when available’ had been used in the rule, which clearly means it was not bending.

Condemning the attack targeting police outside Data Darbar in Lahore, PPP parliamentary leader in the Senate Sherry Rehman remarked that unfortunately, terrorism had been rearing its head in Ramazan, but “ neither has the opposition been taken into confidence on the implementation of the National Action Plan nor has the PM issued any statement in this regard.” Urging that the PM be pressed to attend the Senate, Ms Rehman asked, “Why does the prime minister not visit the house?” She urged that the PM should brief the house on NAP implementation.

After the house passed the bill in the absence of opposition, the chair dropped the call attention notice on the PM’s Iran remarks.

ISLAMABAD: The first-ever provincial assembly elections in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) will be held on July 2, according to an election schedule anno­unced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday.

The Returning Officer (RO) will issue a public notice on Tuesday (today) inviting nominations for the polls on 16 seats of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly.

Candidates will be allowed to file their nomination papers with the RO between May 9 and May 11, while names of the nominated candidates will be published on May 12.

The ECP has set May 18 as the last date for scrutiny and May 22 for filing of appeals against acceptance or rejection of nomination papers, which will be decided by the appellate tribunal by May 27. A revised list of candidates will be published the following day. May 29 will be the last date for withdrawal of candidature as election symbols will be allotted to the contesting candidates the next day.

The election programme will also apply to the four seats reserved for women and one seat reserved for non-Muslims in the KP Assembly as a result of the erstwhile Fata merger.

The ECP, in a separate notification, barred the government and the relevant authorities from posting or transferring any officer in the constituencies for which a poll schedule has been announced.

“No government functionary or elected representative including a local government functionary shall announce any development scheme for the constituencies, where election is under process till 2nd July,” stated the notification issued under Article 218 (3) of the Constitution.

The ECP had determined and notified the share of tribal districts in the KP Assembly seats in January. The decision was in line with Article 106 of the Constitution amended through the 25th Amendment in May 2018.

According to the representation determined by the ECP, Bajaur and Khyber will have three general seats each in the provincial assembly, Mohmand, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan will have two seats each while one seat will go to Orakzai and the Frontier Regions each.

The KP Assembly, under the amended Article 106, will have a total of 145 seats including 115 general seats, 26 seats reserved for women and four for non-Muslim communities. Of the total 145 seats in the KP Assembly, Fata will have 21 seats, including 16 general, four for women and one reserved for non-Muslims.

Under the amendment, the elections for these seats should be held within a year after the 2018 general elections.

Subsequently, the ECP carried out delimitation of constituencies and notified it. The constituencies were delimitated using district-wise provisional population data of Census-2017 provided by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and maps provided by the revenue department of KP government.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Peoples Party has asked aspirants of the party ticket for the upcoming elections for the provincial assembly in tribal districts to send their applications addressed to the President PPP-P. They have been asked to send a bank draft of Rs30,000 against Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians along with the application to the party’s central secretariat.

QUETTA: Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) organized a seminar here in Quetta on electoral and political rights of persons with disabilities. The stakeholders discussed in detail the issues surrounding disability and inclusion of PWDs.

Mohammad Asif Provincial Coordinator CPDI started the session by recitation of Holly Quran, he welcome the participants the handed over the floor to Mr. Raja Shoaib Akbar, Senior Program Manager CPDI, he shared the status of legal structure supporting inclusion of PWDs and also discussed the legal and administrative reforms required for achieving mainstreaming of PWDs. He also stressed on the need to address the disability issues with rights and obligations approach instead of routine charity model.

Organization for Special Talent (HOST), Founder of Quetta Online and a Disable activist Mr. Zia Khan, Advocate and PWDs legislator Mrs. Qamaurnisa, Assistant Director NADRA Mr. Abdul Manan Achakzai, Regional Election Commissioner Mr. Mohammad Fayaz and other disability organizations and stake holders stated that the disabled people were facing lot of difficulties in obtaining the disability certificate and special National Identity Card. They also stated that the political parties and the government functionaries must make sure participation of PWDS representatives in decision making so that their inclusion on the process is ensured. The NADRA representative and Election Commission official gave their views on the matter and ensured that both institutions were determined to support the PWDs more effectively to participate in electoral process of Pakistan.

The Secretary Social Welfare Mr. Abdul Rauf Baloch explained that the social welfare department was playing its role in providing services to the PWDs. He also shared that the department was doing its utmost to simplify the procedure for obtaining disability certificate.

Mr. Subhan Ali President Blind Association and Mr. Samiullah President Hamdared e Mazoran said that there was great gap that required to be filled urgently. The government must take concrete steps for welfare of PWDs including and improve legal infrastructure to ensure participation of PWDs in electoral process. This could be initiated by making it mandatory for the political parties through law to establish and maintain disability wings and fix a reasonable percentage to PWDs in special quota seats and general seats as well.

Mrs. Bushra Rind and government and CM spokesperson speaking on behalf of the government said government was doing its utmost to improve the plight of the PWDs and government was also aware of the need to strengthen efforts for mainstreaming of PWDs, she showed keen interest in reforming the PWDs rights not only in elections but in other departments as well.

The chief guest Mrs. Bushra Rind appreciated the efforts of CPDI for organizing this seminar and said that a number of mainstreaming initiatives were under way. She promised that the issued raised in the seminar will not be forgotten and he would discuss them with the chief minister for further improvements.