ISLAMABAD – The Lower House of Pakistan’s Parliament on Thursday passed theElections (Amendment) Bill, 2019 after presentation of report on it by theStanding Committee on Parliamentary Affairs
The bill was moved in the House by Minister of State for ParliamentaryAffairs which was passed by the National Assembly after voice voting.
The bill was laid earlier as an Ordinance in the House and as per Rules ofProcedure and Conduct of business in National Assembly, an Ordinance laidbefore the Assembly under sub-rule (1) of rule 170 shall be deemed to be aBill introduced in the Assembly on the day it is so laid.
The amendment bill sought insertion of section 2A after sub-section 2 insection 20 of the Election 2017. The new sub-section 2A is as follows “forthe purpose of the delimiting Constituencies, for the general seats ofProvincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for Tribal Areas two or moreseparate areas may be grouped into one constituency for their elections tobe held in 2019 and bye-elections related thereto and thereafter thissub-section shall stand omitted”.
According to the Statement of Objects and Reasons, the Election Commission,after 25th Constitutional Amendment, is obliged to conduct elections on 16general seats of erstwhile FATA including Frontier Regions for theProvincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before July 25, 2019.
In order to avert disenfranchisement of ex-tribal areas including itsnon-contiguous Frontier Regions, the Commission suggested to insertidentical provision for delimitation of general seats of newly allocatedProvincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for erstwhile FATA.