Advisor to Prime Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan Thursday said the government will introduce a constitutional amendment bill in the parliament next week for open voting in the Senate elections and to give the dual nationals the right to contest elections.
Speaking at a press conference along with Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz, he said the election reforms package has been prepared after a series of meetings chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan. This will be the first constitutional reforms package since 1985 to ensure that Senate elections are held in a free, fair and transparent manner, he noted.
According to the amendment to be made in Article 59(2) of the constitution, an open vote will be cast instead of the single transferable vote in the Senate election. While through another amendment in the article 63(1)(c) the dual nationals will be able to contest the upcoming Senate elections and elections of Parliament and provincial assemblies in future.
In case a dual national wins an election, he would have to give a clear proof before taking oath as the legislator that he had renounced his foreign citizenship. If he will lose the election, the dual national will have no need to renounce his foreign citizenship, he added.
Dr Babar recalled that in the past, Senate elections were made controversial with purchase of votes and corruption. He said the proposed constitutional amendments will be a test case for opposition which in the past had supported the idea of open voting in the parliament. The introduction of reforms package in parliament will make it clear who in the opposition supports fair elections and wants to stop the buying of votes and horse trading and who does otherwise, he continued.
The advisor said Prime Minister Imran Khan has made it clear that irrespective of the fact that his party would get more or less votes he would pursue the electoral reforms in the Senate and the path of accountability.
Shibli Faraz said PTI government is ready to ‘pay whatever price needs to be paid’ to ensure that the upcoming Senate elections are transparent and no vote-buying takes place. He recalled how the PTI government had expelled several members of the provincial assembly (MPAs) from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after it emerged they had sold their votes during the 2018 Senate elections. “We removed 20 sitting MPAs from our government in KP because there was a doubt that they used their vote incorrectly and some transactions happened that were unacceptable. Only the PTI and Prime Minister Imran Khan could have removed sitting MPAs. We have not seen such an example in the past or in the present”.
He said the government was ready to ‘make all required legal efforts’ to ensure that the 2021 Senate elections were free and transparent. He termed it an opportunity for the opposition parties to cooperate and “make [the efforts] successful”. He pointed out that the concept of open ballots was also present in the Charter of Democracy – an agreement signed between the PPP and the PML-N in 2006 – and said that it was ‘time for implementation’.
* Replacing ‘single transferable vote’ in Article 59(2) with ‘open vote’
* Amending Article 63(1)(c) to allow dual nationals to contest elections
* Including the word ‘Senate’ in Article 226 of the Constitution
