PEC Urges People To Get Registered As Voters For Strengthening Democracy In Country

Provincial Election Commissioner Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sharifullah on Tuesday urged the all segments of the society to actively take part in the ongoing voters' registration and verification process to enable them for their right to vote for strengthening democratic process in the country

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Dec, 2021 ) :Provincial Election Commissioner Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sharifullah on Tuesday urged the all segments of the society to actively take part in the ongoing voters' registration and verification process to enable them for their right to vote for strengthening democratic process in the country.

Addressing a function held in connection with National Voters' Day at District Council Hall the Provincial Election Commissioner stressed the need for raising awareness and educating people about significance and importance of vote in order to enable them to use the right to vote wisely to ,make the democratic process further effective and achieve Socio-economic development of the country.

He was of the view that people would not be able to elect representatives of their choice, having a vision and prudent policies for national development unless they got registered as voters and cast their votes in the election process.

He said the National Voter's Day is observed across the country on December 7, to create awareness among the general public and young voters about the importance of voting in the electoral process besides maximising voters' registration.

He said the Election Commission was a constitutional body and had struggled for strengthening democratic institutions, adding the ECP had always played a key role for the promotion of democracy and democratic norms in the country.

He said ECP faced several challenges including enhancement of female's turnout in the election and it successfully accomplished the task by ensuring females' participation across the province in the previous general election.

He said that ECP was streamlining matters and the process of door to door voters verification drive was successfully under way.

He said arrangements were being made to conduct the local government elections in a transparent manner. He said that the code of conduct was being closely monitored.

He said that district voter education committees had been set up in all the districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to increase the voter turnout in connection with the election awareness campaign.

On the occasion, Prof.

Dr. Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Chairman, Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar, elaborated on the importance of voting and said that the celebration of this day by the Election Commission would create awareness among the people about voting.

He also appreciated the possible steps taken by the Election Commission of Pakistan for transparency of elections.

He was of the view that maximum people should come out and exercise their right to vote so that visionary and honest leaders could be elected for the development of the country.

As a result, the country could not witness due progress as those people came into power who lacked vision or expertise and they were heavily dependent on a bureaucratic circle of what he called a 'labour class' to execute development initiatives.

Moreover, he opined that development funds should be at disposal of local representatives who understood problems at grass roots level better than those who were sitting at provincial level.

Joint Provincial Election Commissioner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Muhammad Farid Afridi, in his remarks welcomed the participants and said that it was an important and historic day which underscored the need for creating awareness and educating people about importance of vote for a strong democratic system in the country.

Speaking on the occasion, Direction (Election) briefed about revision of electoral rolls and local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, adding each voter would be issued six ballot papers during polling.

He also informed that the facility of postal ballot was not available in local government elections.

During the moot, a demo was also presented as to how people would cast their vote in local government elections. A large number of representatives of civil society, media, officers of relevant departments, students, workers of political parties, community and religious leaders and intelligentsia were present.

Later, an awareness walk was held which was led by the Provincial Election Commissioner Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the participants were holding banners and placards inscribed with slogans about importance of the vote.