PESHAWAR: Print and electronic media will be allowed limited coverage of Senate elections in the provincial assembly today (Friday).

“We have asked the Election Commission to facilitate media coverage of (Friday proceedings) for some time,” information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said on Thursday when asked whether his government would continue with its 2009 policy of denying media the access to election process.

The ANP-PPP coalition government had denied journalists the access to the polling place in 2009 on the basis of its experience in the 2008 presidential election when electronic media telecast images of a couple of MPAs showing their votes to colleagues before casting them.

The minister said Awami National Party would ensure sanctity of secret polling on the occasion of the Friday’s Senate elections as enshrined in the Constitution.

“ANP is of the view that there should not be secret balloting for Senate election because if the prime minister is elected by show of hand, then why not Senators,” he said. — Bureau Report