ECP On Overseas Vote Right
Pakistan mission sends proposals to enhance voting rights of expatriates
By Jamil Khan @ Gulf Today-Sharjah, February 19, 2012
DUBAI: Pakistan missions in the UAE recently held a meeting to discuss the distinct possibility of the community being able to cast their vote in the country’s next general elections.
The meeting, which was chaired by Ambassador Jamil Ahmed Khan at the Pakistan embassy in Abu Dhabi, and attended by officials from the Consulate General, Dubai, appreciated the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision empowering Pakistani expatriates to take part in the country’s electoral process.
Talking to the media on Thursday night, the Pakistani Ambassador said that the ECP had recently decided to allow overseas Pakistanis to exercise their voting right in the general elections.
“We discussed various options, including the proposals brought forward at the ECP’s recent meeting held in Islamabad. We too sent our proposals on the demographics of the expatriate community, which is scattered in different regions of the UAE,” Khan added.
“The ECP’s decision will hugely benefit the large number of people comprising the community residing here in the UAE as they would now be able to wield their influence by taking part in polls. After all, the expat community has been contributing no mean share to the country’s economy by way of remittances. Now, the recent decision to enable them to cast their vote would give them the opportunity to play an integral part in the decision-making of the new government. This would have a huge bearing on the Pakistan election process,” Khan stressed.
He further said that the meeting discussed the arrangements and planning that would be required to be part of the election process and vowed: “We would extend all our efforts to comply with the decisions taken by the government.”
The proposals discussed at the meeting included postal balloting, setting up overseas constituencies and allocating separate seats in the country’s national and provincial assemblies for those foreign states/countries where a large number of Pakistanis resided.
According to recent reports, the ECP has allowed approximately 3.7 million eligible Pakistanis to cast their vote in the next general elections.
Out of over 6 million overseas Pakistanis residing in different countries, 3.7 million who are over 18 years of age would be eligible to cast their vote.
The ECP records revealed that the there were 1.7 million Pakistanis residing in Saudi Arabia, 1.2 million each in the United Kingdom and UAE, United States (0.9 million), Canada (0.3 million), Oman (0.2 million), Kuwait (150,000), Greece (90,000), Germany (78,000), France and Scotland (60,000 each), Denmark (30,000) and Australia (27,000).
Overseas Pakistanis eligible to cast their vote would have to be armed with their National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (Nicop). Meanwhile, the ECP has been finalising, on a priority basis, the registration of all Nicop holders on the country’s electoral rolls.
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