Senior ECP member sworn in as acting CEC as Justice Raza retires

ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner retired Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza called it a day on Friday upon completion of his five-year tenure amid the deadlock between the government and the opposition over nominees for the electoral body’s top post and two members from Sindh and Balochistan.

The ECP member from Punjab, Justice (retd) Altab Ibrahim, who also happens to be a senior member of the commission, took oath as acting CEC today.

The ECP member from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administered the oath to the acting chief election commissioner.

A day earlier, the government proposed three names for the post of new CEC. The parliamentary committee on appointment of CEC and ECP members will meet next week to mull the three names each proposed by the government and the opposition for the positions of CEC and ECP members from Sindh and Balochistan.

Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shahbaz Sharif through a letter to Prime Minister Khan had proposed the names of two former bureaucrats Nasir Mehmood Khosa and Akhlaq Ahmed Tarar and former ambassador to the US Jalil Abbas Jillani for the top constitutional slot of the commission.

Prime Minister Khan proposed the names of incumbent ECP Secretary Babar Yaqoob and two former bureaucrats Abbas Mekan and Arif Khan for the CEC post.