By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s election authorities are scrambling to ensure a smooth and peaceful vote next month, as more than half of the polling stations in the country have been declared sensitive or highly sensitive, and political parties are locked in a bitter dispute over electoral symbols.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said on Tuesday that it had set up 92,353 polling stations for the general elections slated for Feb. 8, of which 51,047 were deemed at risk of violence or disruption, amid a spate of militant attacks on candidates and voters.
The commission said it had devised a comprehensive security plan for each district and would deploy security personnel accordingly.
The elections, which were originally planned for November but postponed due to a new census and constituency demarcation, are expected to be a tight race between the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by former cricket star Imran Khan, who is currently in jail on corruption charges.
The ECP also instructed officials overseeing poll management to refrain from altering candidates’ electoral symbols since the printing of ballot papers was underway.
The directives were issued to returning officers, district returning officers, and other election officials a day after accusations from political parties — PPP and PTI — alleging that the electoral watchdog had either denied or assigned wrong symbols to their candidates.
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had claimed earlier this week that returning officers had allotted the wrong electoral symbols to his party’s candidates in Punjab “under pressure from PML-N”.
The PPP leader vowed to take the matter to the election commission and courts.
Similarly, several independent candidates belonging to the PTI had challenged the decision of the returning officers to issue different election symbols to them and made the ECP, returning officers, and district returning officers respondents in the petition.
PTI leader Shehryar Afridi, who is contesting elections from Kohat, had also petitioned the court against the allocation of the election symbol ‘bottle’.
The ECP issued a statement, asking returning officers and election officials to stop changing symbols for poll aspirants.
“All provincial election commissioners, returning officers, and district returning officers have been directed to stop altering electoral symbols at this stage. If changes are necessary, seek permission from the ECP, as the printing of ballot papers has begun and changing symbols may not be possible,” the electoral watchdog said.
The ECP said the printing had started on Monday.
The commission also warned that the polls, already delayed by months, could face further setbacks if candidates keep changing their electoral symbols after they have been assigned.
“If the process of changing the election symbols continues, then on the one hand, there is a fear of delay in the election because the ballot papers will have to be reprinted, for which the time is already limited, and on the other hand, the special paper ballot papers will be wasted,” the statement said.
The commission said it could consider postponing the elections in some constituencies if the symbol changes did not stop.
In a later statement shared on social media platform X, the ECP spokesperson said that a proposal was being considered where the only available recourse would be to delay the election in those constituencies where the process of altering electoral symbols did not stop.
The spokesperson stressed the time constraint, stating that the ECP lacked enough time to reprint ballot papers if the ongoing process of changing electoral symbols continued.
The issue arose after some leaders of the PTI party, who are running as independent candidates, challenged the commission’s decision on election symbols after the Supreme Court denied them the party’s symbol of a cricket bat. The PTI lost the bat symbol for violating rules and laws on holding intraparty polls.
Electoral symbols are unique pictorial identifiers that help voters recognize their candidates and parties on the ballot paper. The symbols are especially important in Pakistan, where more than 40 percent of the 241 million population are illiterate.
Most of Pakistan’s constituencies are in rural areas, where the literacy rate is around 30 percent. The country’s election process involves thousands of candidates and dozens of political parties and symbols. A single ballot paper can have a long list of options for voters.
The commission said it had used 800 tons of paper to print 220 million ballot papers for the 2018 elections, while this time it estimated that it would need 2,070 tons of paper to print 260 million ballot papers for the 2024 elections.
The polls are also seen as a test for the watchdog, tasked with ensuring a free fair, and secure election in a country, that has a history of electoral violence, with hundreds of people killed or injured in previous campaigns.
The run-up to the polls has been tainted by a wave of violence, especially in the restive provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, where militants have targeted candidates and their supporters.
Last week, a candidate for the provincial assembly in KP was shot dead along with two aides while campaigning in his constituency, while another candidate for the national assembly in Balochistan was seriously wounded in a separate attack.
The government has announced also that it will deploy thousands of security forces, mainly from the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary (FC) to the volatile regions ahead of the polls.
At least 5,000 troops of FC would be sent to KP, which borders Afghanistan, where the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups have a strong presence.
Another 1,700 FC personnel would be stationed in Islamabad, the capital, and 400 in Karachi, the largest city, to assist the police in maintaining law and order.
A senior official in the provincial government of Sindh, which includes Karachi said that the security situation was deteriorating and that more police teams would be deployed at polling stations on the voting day.
Last year, the country witnessed its deadliest year since 2014, with more than 1,500 casualties, including civilians, security forces, and militants, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, a think tank based in Islamabad.
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