Awaits orders: ECP is election-ready, its chief says

By Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD: Sikandar Sultan Raja, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), on Wednesday trashed PTI’s allegations of bias saying they had no legs to stand on.

Raja said this during an informal chat with reporters after administering oaths to two new members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

“The commission takes its decisions fearlessly and will continue to do so,” Raja said responding to a query and later added, “ECP can hold elections whenever the government wants it to”.

On the accusation of bias hurled by the PTI the commission, Raja said the ECP was a friend to everyone and it had always taken its decisions lawfully and constitutionally. “If anyone is unhappy with or disagrees with them, it is their problem.”

Raja said final delimitations of the constituencies were not possible before the release of official results of the national census.

“ECP’s position on the census is clear. The results of the 2017 census were released in May 2021 and the delimitation of constituencies was started thereafter, while a constitutional amendment on constituencies and elections was introduced in 2018.”

The government now wanted a digital census and if the results were released by December 2022, the constituencies delimitation could be completed on time.

“If the results hit snags, the elections will be held on the basis of the 2017 census,” he added.

Refuting the allegations of lack of progress on the resignations of PTI parliamentarians, Raja asserted former NA deputy speaker Qasim Suri did not refer the case to the commission.

On the foreign funding case, the CEC said it was in process.