ECP again conducts ‘successful’ mock EMS drill

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday conducted another mock test of the Election Management System (EMS), designed for tabulation and compilation of election results, successfully completing all the required steps and goals.

The last such exercise was carried out on January 26 and it was also described as quite successful by the Election Commission.

According to a commission spokesman, returning officers of 859 constituencies across the country participated in the experimental exercise of EMS and the system’s eligibility was tested in all aspects, both online and offline, and it was found to be satisfactory in all respects.

He explained that the main purpose of EMS was tabulation and compilation of election results, and it would be used on the Election Day, February 8. “This system works at the same speed and efficiency in both online and offline mode. Today’s experimental exercise proved EMS to be fully functional and effective, including delivery and form of election results through EMS during this exercise,” he added.

The process of generating Form 47, he pointed out, was also repeated several times and the performance of EMS was found to be satisfactory in this regard.

Also, the ECP Saturday said the training of about 1.49 million election staff for conduct of general election had successfully been completed.

An ECP spokesman said through these training exercises, it was ensured that all the election staff perform their duties professionally during the general election 2024. He said a total of 27,676 training sessions were organised for 87 days in remote areas across the country for the training of election staff, in which 3,821 master trainers participated. The series of training sessions started on November 19 and concluded on the evening of February 3. Those who attended the training sessions included 144 district returning officers (DROs), 859 returning officers (ROs) and polling staff. Among those trained in the polling staff were 191,526 presiding officers and senior assistant presiding officers (APOs) for whom 7,663 two-day training sessions were held.

In addition, the spokesman pointed out that 19,630 training sessions were conducted for 785,060 assistant presiding officers (APOs) and polling officers. Moreover, necessary training was also organised for 32 regional monitoring coordinators (RMCs) at the regional level and 1,336 district monitoring officers (DMOs) and monitoring officers (MOs) at the district level to monitor election activities under Section 234 of the Elections Act 2017. The commission conducted 148 training sessions before connecting around 5,000 officers and data entry operators (DEOs) with returning officers to effectively run the Election Management System (EMS). Similarly, the commission prepared 1400 master trainers (MTs) to ensure the best performance of security duties during the elections, who later provided necessary training to 503,495 security personnel.

Separately, former senator and head of the Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society Lt. Gen. (retd) Abdul Qayyum said the ECP initiative to introduce the EMS, on which they had so far invested Rs280 million, was a step in the right direction.

Talking to a group of journalists here, he, however, maintained that it was important to ensure that the system being used had comprehensively been tested, that it could not be manipulated and it was acceptable to all stakeholders.

He said Pakistan had bitter experience of the result management system (RTS) fiasco in the 2018 general election, which was reportedly manipulated to boost one party. Resultantly, he continued, the nation lost total faith in the electoral process and that shook the foundation of the state because a popular sitting government was removed through engineering.

On the concept of caretaker government, he contended that that was a flawed system and that hardly any country in the world had such an arrangement. “Bangladesh introduced this concept and appointed a chief adviser instead of a prime minister, but then abolished that in 2015 through 15th amendment to their constitution. Likewise, India also did not adopt the caretaker government concept,” he argued.

He noted that in the 1973 Constitution, there was no such provision; however, in 1985, the late General Ziaul Haq amended the document to introduce caretaker government and the late Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi was sworn in as the first caretaker PM of Pakistan.