LAHORE: The federal government asked on Wednesday its quarters and provincial governments to make people believe that the general elections would be held on July 25 at any cost, and dispel any impression to the contrary.

The direction was given during a video conference conducted by Federal Law and Information Minister Syed Ali Zafar and federal interior and information secretaries, and attended by provincial chief secretaries, home and information secretaries, director generals of their directorates of public relations and representatives of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

According to official sources in Punjab, the meeting reviewed arrangements for the upcoming elections. But its message was to make people believe through media and other sources of mass contact that nothing could delay polls, dispelling the impressions being created to the contrary by some media houses and social media. “Tell people that elections are being held on July 25 in any case and they should not doubt them,” the federal caretaker law minister told provincial administrations. He asked them to share election related information with people through media in clear terms and refrain from hiding anything as this could generate misunderstandings.

The provinces were advised to follow ECP’s code of conduct and make political parties, people and media respect it.

Another direction was to make public ECP policy guidelines, election arrangements like printing of ballot papers, enforcement of the code of conduct and its violations.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2018