Pakistan National Assembly on Thursday approved Election (amendment) bill 2022 for amending the 2017 election reforms which had passed under former Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan term.
These reforms gave opportunity to overseas Pakistanis to cast their vote via I-Voting in elections and it provided the recommendations to use of EVMs in elections. The reforms aimed to use of EVM and I-Voting in local by-election as pilot project to check the efficacy of the system and recommend the use in next general election.
Election (Amendment) bill 2022 was passed by a majority of vote in the lower house and only members of Grand Democratic Alliance apposed it.
The bill was proposed by Parliament Affair Minister Murtaza Javed Abbasi, before that the Minister presented a measure for allowing the bill to be tabled directly to the Senate without going through the standing committee of that matter. The bill will be tabled in the Senate today.
Parliament Affair Minister Murtaza denied the claims of depriving the right to vote of foreign citizens, and said in discussions on the bill that “Overseas Pakistanis are a precious asset of the country and the government does not believe in snatching their right to vote.”
On the EVM issue Pakistan’s Law Minister said that the parliament is not against the use of technology, but has concerns about its misuse as the Result Transmission System (RTS) which had failed during the last general elections “to favour a particular political party”. He further added that “The Election Commission had also expressed its inability to hold elections through I-voting and EVMs in a short span of time and without proper homework.”
However, Imran Khan’s PTI has expressed their anger and called the bill “regressive and condemnable act” by the current Shabaz Sharif government.
PTI Vice-Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a tweet that “PTI gave over nine million overseas Pakistanis the right to vote.” Today, this band of thieves and thugs removed it, disenfranchising a staggering number of Pakistanis and barring the use of electronic voting machines. ”
Details of next general elections expenses also shared during this National Assembly session. According to an estimates, general election will cost around Rs. 47.41 billion.
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