ISLAMABAD, Feb 18: The electoral reforms committee is giving final touches to a set of recommendations, proposing amendments to various electoral laws and the report will be ready shortly after Senate polls.

This was stated by Secretary Election Commission Kanwar Dilshad, who also heads the committee, while talking to Dawn after a forum on ‘Electoral reforms: promise and prospects, one year after elections’ organised by Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), a coalition of 30 leading civil society organisations working for framing of appropriate laws for a fool-proof electoral system.

He said the report of the committee was most likely to be finalised by the second week of March. He said the committee had been mandated to study and recommend amendments to electoral laws and related acts, rules, regulations, procedures and processes where necessary.

He said this would be done in line with the best practices of the modern world and developing countries of the Saarc region including India.

Earlier, speaking at the forum, Kanwar Dilshad said the electoral reforms committee was currently engaged in examining suggestions and recommendations of national and international observer missions received after February 2008 elections, and those received from time to time from political parties, civil society and general public.

Kanwar Dilshad said the Election Support Group – a forum of international entities – was supporting the strengthening of all aspects of electoral environment in Pakistan.

Its members include diplomatic missions, international donor organisations and NGOs as implementation partners. The group has compiled “compendium of electoral reforms proposal” summarising 600 pages from 16 reports and documents by national and international entities from 2006 to 2008.

Speaking on the occasion, representatives of nine political parties called for rectifying flaws in the existing electoral laws and called for using Nadra for developing a credible voters’ list without any duplicate entry.

They also underlined the need for voters’ education, highlighting election manifestos of political parties, ensuring an atmosphere where women were not barred from exercising their right to vote.

Some of the speakers also termed an independent judiciary as the prerequisite for free, fair and transparent elections.

Those who spoke on the occasion included Marvi Memon (PML-Q), Siddiqul Farooq (PML-N), Farid Paracha (Jamaat-i-Islami), Iqbal Qadri Advocate (MQM), Nayyar Hussain Bokhari (PPP), Anisa Zeb Tahirkeli (PPP-S), Senator Liaquat Ali Bungalzai (MMA) and Raza Mohammad Raza (Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party).

Fafen also released comprehensive recommendations for electoral reforms to mark the anniversary of the general elections. In its set of recommendations, Fafen said the election law should specify the role of police and other security officials and especially their obligation to implement the orders of presiding officers as Magistrate First Class.

The Election Commission should coordinate with other state institutions to provide election-related training to police and other security officers before each election.

It said the election law must be clarified with regard to who is authorised to be inside the polling stations, who could give authorisation through what procedure, and what each category of people was authorised to do inside polling stations.