Tuesday saw the National Assembly approve a bill that would prevent members from switching their party affiliation and make changes to the Elections Act of 2017.
The bill will prohibit the politicians from later amending their affidavit to indicate their membership with any political party. The politicians ran as independent candidates in the elections on February 8.
The development followed the July 12 verdict of the Supreme Court, which determined that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), founded by Imran Khan, was entitled to reserved seats.
The bill amends Section 66 of the Elections Act to state that a candidate will be “deemed to be” ineligible if they do not provide the returning officer (RO) with a declaration of their party affiliation prior to requesting the election symbol.
A political party will not be eligible for reserved seats at a later date if it does not submit its list for reserved seats within the allotted time frame, according to the change to Section 104.
