ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is all set to facilitate around 8.5 million registered voters to cast their votes in 41 national and provincial assembly constituencies for the biggest ever by-elections in the country's history being held on Thursday.
All 522 candidates will be in run on 15 National Assembly and 26 Provincial Assembly constituencies, with 201 candidates contesting for National Assembly constituencies across the country.
180 candidates will contest for 15 Punjab Assembly constituencies, 82 candidates for four Sindh Assembly's constituencies and 27 and 32 candidates for four each constituencies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan Assembly constituencies respectively.
It would be the first test of the acting Chief Election Commissioner, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani.
Jilani was appointed when former CEC Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim had resigned from his post on July 31, a week after the Supreme Court ordered the commission to hold the presidential polls ahead of its original schedule.
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had boycotted the presidential elections.
The Election Commission has set up over 7000 polling stations across the country with around 1800 sensitive and over 1500 highly sensitive polling stations, where personnel of armed forces will be deployed.
Deployment of sufficient polling staff as well as security personnel to thwart any untoward incident has been made possible by the Election Commission.
To act against those involved in hampering the smooth polling process, Army officers deployed at the polling stations have been designated the powers of Magistrate First Class.
Similarly, Presiding Officers will also have the Magisterial Powers like always as the commission has also directed the Returning Officers to send results manually to avoid delay in announcement.
The commission has also set up a complaint center to facilitate voters across the country in case they want to register any complaint of rigging or maneuvering the polling process.
A control room has also been set up at the ECP headquarters to facilitate the media for gathering results and their further dissemination to general public. The Returning Officers will also announce the result for respective constituencies at their offices prior to sending the same to the commission.
The commission had activated the SMS service (8300) to facilitate voters for knowing details about their vote and the polling stations as media personnel and observers were also issued 'cards' to visit polling stations and monitor the process.
Provincial governments have been directed to ensure security of the voters and foil the bids to hamper the smooth and free and fair conduct of the by-elections.
Meanwhile, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) members on Wednesday walked out of the Senate against postponement of by-election in NA 25 (D.I Khan cum Tank).
Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, speaking in the House, alleged that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, while sensing the victory of JUI-F, had requested the Election Commission to postpone the election on the pretext of law and order.
He said the postponement of by-election was an injustice to the JUI-F.
