Islamabad May 5, 2008: Senator Asif Ali Zardari Co-Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party has condemned the postponement of bye elections to the vacant National and Provincial Assemblies seats by two months.

The Co-Chairman has decided to meet the Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani this evening to bring to his attention the Party's serious reservations over the postponement.

By elections that were to be held on June 18 were postponed today by the Election Commission by two months. Announcing the postponement the EC said that the Frontier government had requested postponement citing reasons of law and order and the preparation of provincial budget.

In a statement today Senator Asif Zardari demanded to know as to the real reasons behind the postponement saying that the reasons cited by the Election Commission did not appear credible.

It may be recalled that the bye-elections were earlier announced to be held on June 3. The Election Commission however postponed them to June 18 saying that political parties were not ready and wanted more time to file nomination papers. At that time also the political parties had rejected the postponement.

The PPP Co-Chairman said that holding of bye-elections within sixty days of a seat falling vacant was a constitutional requirement under Article 224 (4) of the Constitution. As such the postponement for the second
time was intriguing, as it was in conflict with the constitutional requirement, he said.

He said that the PPP was ready to field its candidates in the bye-elections on June 3 and also on June 18. The Party had already invited applications from candidates for election tickets and made all necessary preparations in this regard.

Even if the law and order situation was bad in any particular locality it provided no justification to postpone bye-elections throughout the country.

 

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