Islamabad, January 30; Releasing the Citizens Monitoring Report on State of Electoral Reforms in Pakistan, PILDAT has said that only 48% of the Election Commission of Pakistan�s 5-Year Strategic Plan has been implemented.

As of December 31, 2011, the average progress made on 76 objectives under the ECP Strategic Plan that were scheduled to be completed by December 31, 2011 is assessed to be 36 %, whereas this progress should have been 100 %, noted PILDAT. �This is a not a satisfactory performance but one hopes that this citizens� assessment will prove to be a shot in the arm and the efforts to achieve progress as per the Strategic Plan will be expedited� commented PILDAT.

In the first-of-its-kind report monitoring the progress on state of electoral reforms in Pakistan, PILDAT noted that the ECP deserves credit for preparing specific blue print and a road map for electoral reforms, with the consultation and input of political parties and civil society organizations of Pakistan, in the form of a 5-year Strategic Plan. While the ECP has the responsibility to implement the 5-year strategic plan, it is the responsibility of the citizens to monitor the progress of implementation and raise questions where the progress is slow or stalled. PILDAT report acknowledged that a full-time permanent Election Commission has come into being for the first time in the history of Pakistan with its four members appointed after bi-partisan consensus. The report also notes that the ECP has taken some landmark steps towards free and fair election in Pakistan such as initiating a legislation to declare Computerised National Identification Card (CNIC) a pre-requisite for registration as a voter and casting a vote; using NADRA database for new electoral rolls; addition of voters picture in the electoral rolls; studying the feasibility of using an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and plans to establish a political finance wing in the ECP to check excessive use of money in elections.

Analysing progress, PILDAT report said that preparation of revised Computerised Electoral Rolls is only 75 % complete despite the expiry of the original deadline of December 31, 2011 fixed by the Election Commission. Efforts to improve the participation of marginalized sections of the society such as women, minorities and persons with disabilities have made only 12 % progress. Efforts for strengthening the participation of political parties and candidates have yielded only 20 % progress so far.

Out of 76 objectives which ECP was set to achieve by December 31, 2011, only 6 have been completely realized while work is in progress on the remaining 70.

The Election of Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had prepared and unveiled the Five-Year Strategic Plan 2010-2014 on May 25, 2010. In the Plan, a total of 129 objectives were listed under 15 Strategic Goals with deadline set for achieving each objective. Seventy-Six (76) objectives were scheduled to be achieved by December 31, 2011. The remaining 46 objectives are scheduled to be achieved after December 31, 2011 � some as late as December 2014. It is estimated that the implementation of the Strategic Plan will require Rs. 9 Billion (US $ 100 Million) over a period of 5 years. It is learnt that only about 10 percent of the required amount has so far been committed by foreign donors.

The Citizens Monitoring Report has also listed key electoral issues which will dominate the discourse on Election and electoral reforms in Pakistan in the coming months. Electoral Rolls and deadline of February 23, 2012 set by the Supreme Court for the completion of the Electoral Rolls will continue to capture the headlines; Appointment of the new Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) by March 2012, �consultative process� for the formation of Caretaker Governments; date of the next parliamentary election; questions about the fairness of next general Election in the presence of a partisan President and partisan Provincial Governors, and the Term (2 or 5 years) of current members of the Election Commission are expected to be major issues of focus in the coming days, PILDAT observed.

PILDAT plans to issue Quarterly Monitoring Reports on the implementation of the Election Commission Strategic Plan.

This report is prepared by PILDAT under the project Supporting Monitoring of Democracy, Electoral Reforms and Development of Youth in Pakistan which is supported by the Danish International Development Agency, Government of Denmark.

The complete 1st Quarterly Citizens Monitoring Report on State of Electoral Reforms in Pakistan can be downloaded here.