ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Thursday ordered provincial and federal governments to provide foolproof security to the contesting candidates specially top leadership of the political parties.

Secretary ECP Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan, while talking to the media here, said that the commission has decided this in a meeting held under the chairmanship of chief election commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim and discussed issues related to upcoming elections.

The secretary said the relevant departments had been directed to ensure security so that the recurrence of unfortunate incidents of terrorism against contesting candidates could be avoided.

He said President Asif Ali Zardari has also asked the CEC to play a proactive role in providing foolproof security to candidates and leadership of political parties.

The secretary said that meeting of provincial governments, ministry of defence and interior had been conveyed on April 25 to discuss security plan of the elections.

Regarding the provision of voting right to overseas Pakistanis, he said, the meeting approved draft proposal to issue an ordinance for providing voting right to expatriates.

“The propose ordinance would be sent to law ministry for approval with in two days and its details would be sheared to the media after the approval,” he said.

To a question, he said, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was imparting training to 80,000 Presiding Officers (Pos).

Responding to a query regarding non registration of votes of Bugti tribe, he said, a total of 60,000 Bugtis have been registered by NADRA as voters in Dera Bugti.

However, according to NADRA, the votes of only 9000 Bugti have been registered on their current addresses.

He said the decision of providing voting rights to one million IDPs of FATA is in final stages.

In 2008, the IDPs of South Balochistan had been allowed to cast their vote in Tank. Now, political agents of FATA had been asked to finalise polling stations for providing vote right to IDPs.

To a question he said the printing of 1.8 million ballot papers would be started from Friday and the process would be completed on April 30.

Regarding constituting insufficient Electoral Tribunals (10) for deciding disputes of over 2,4000 candidates, he said the tribunals were constituted as per the traditions of past and nobody had pointed out about the insufficiency of election tribunals.

The ECP might have enhanced the number of election tribunals, if someone had pointed out, he said.

To another question, he said, the law impedes to provide transport to voters and it has already been discussed with Senate standing committee.

The ECP had asked the parliamentarians to amend the law for providing transport facility to voters but it was not done. “The law is there so we have to implement it,” he said.

To a question, he said, there is no limit of advertisement expenditure for political parties as per law, however a candidate of National Assembly has to spend not more than 1.5 million on his campaign while a provincial assembly candidates must not spend more than a million rupees on election campaign.