“The elections can be held on time only if we work in full capacity. The deadline of June 21 can´t be met if preparations are delayed,” said Joint Secretary Anil Kumar Thakur, who is also the EC spokesperson. However, EC is without its commissioners as all the five commissioners have retired. [break]
EC officials have planned to prepare a three-month plan for polls once all the commissioners are appointed. He said amendment to the constitutional provisions to remove constitutional difficulties through the president´s order has created grounds for appointment of commissioners even in the absence of parliament. The constitutional provisions were amended as the Interim Constitution requires parliamentary hearings for appointment of commissioners in constitutional bodies.
“Now the government should allocate budget for the polls,” he said. According to Thakur, the commission had earlier requested the government to allocate at least around Rs 10 billion for elections. “But now we need more budget as the expenses might go up,” he added.
Currently, the EC officials are studying the ordinances endorsed by the president and plan to soon carry out other preparatory works, including training officials and volunteers to be deployed for the election. “We need to educate around 47,000 volunteers for the election,” said Thakur.
However, there has been an understanding among parties to update the voters´ list on the basis of the one prepared for the CA election held in April, 2008. Besides an understanding on issuing citizenship by descent to the children of citizens by birth, the parties have agreed to issue citizenship through due procedures to those already registered in the voter list. EC estimates that around 150,000 additional voters will be registered for the fresh polls.
The government´s plan for June elections will largely rely on the support political parties extend to the chief justice-led government, said EC officials. Altogether 75 political parties had been registered during the CA election in 2008, while 44 new parties have registered with EC following the polls.
In addition, other12 organizations have applied for the registration at EC, while many more are likely to apply for registration in the days to come.
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