ISLAMABAD – The schedule for the General Elections 2018 has been revealed.As per the sources returning officers will invite nominations papersthrough public notices and June 4 is to be set as the last date for filingof nomination papers.

The list of nominated candidates will be published on June 5. June 12 hasbeen proposed as the last date for the scrutiny of the papers and June 18as the last date for appeals against acceptance or rejection of nominationpapers. June 25 would be the last date for decisions on appeals by theelection tribunals and the list of validly nominated candidates will bepublished the following day.

June 27 will be the last date for withdrawal of nomination papers.Returning officers will allocate election symbols to contesting candidateson June 28 and final list of the candidates will also be published the sameday.

An ECP official pointed out that it would be for the first time in theelectoral history of the country that the scrutiny period would be extendedfrom seven to eight days and the poll campaign period would be increasedfrom 21 days to 28 days.

He said a meeting of the ECP had been convened on May 29 to decidecontroversies over allocation of symbols to political parties.

The official said the ECP had met all its targets and was fully ready tohold free, fair and transparent elections.

He said delimitation of constituencies had already taken place and finalelectoral rolls were also ready. He said district returning officers(DROs), returning officers (ROs) and presiding officers (POs) had beenappointed and training of polling staff had also started.

He said the commission had announced its plan of action to hold polls andwas well on track as far as its implementation was concerned.

He said around 85,000 polling stations with some 285,000 polling boothswould be established across the country and security cameras would beinstalled at most sensitive polling stations.

He said training had already been imparted to 133 DROs while training to933 ROs, regional election commissioners and district electioncommissioners was under way and would be completed by June 1. He saidtraining of POs would be completed by July 15.

Answering a question, he said no decision had been taken yet on deploymentof army and Rangers in and outside polling stations, adding that it wouldbe done, if required, at most sensitive polling stations.