K-P govt sends formal request to ECP for holding LG polls

K-P government has sent formal request to hold local government elections in the province to the ECP


Irfan Ghauri October 25, 2014

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government on Saturday sent a formal request to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) hold Local Government (LG) elections in the province.

Sources in the ECP told The Express Tribune that they had received the request on Friday from the K-P provincial government, which fulfills the legal requirement for holding polls in any province.

“We have received letter from K-P government that it was ready to go for polls” an ECP official confirmed.

The letter was sent by K-P secretary local government. However, the letter did not mention any proposed specific date to hold the polls.

Under K-P local bodies’ laws, ECP has to hold polls within 60 to 90 days from the day the province sends its formal request.

Bottlenecks

Despite the formal request, the K-P government can expect bottlenecks in local body polls with the ECP having told the Supreme Court that polls in the province cannot be held before March next year.

“We had asked the K-P government to make amendments in around a dozen rules. They have not done so yet” ECP claimed.

All provinces have to frame rules according to their LG laws. K-P did that as well, but there were some shortcomings which ECP had pointed out to provincial government in a meeting held late last month.

“Till K-P makes amendments, the request will remain ineffective. The countdown will start once provincial government completes all pre-requisites” the officials of law wing of ECP said.

ECP will meet early next week and discuss the K-P government’s request. It is likely that it will write back to the provincial government asking it to send a copy of amended rules.

ECP officials added it will still take few more months to procure all the relevant material to conduct LG polls in the province.

Under K-P local government laws, there are seven categories of seats and each seat would require a different colour ballot paper.

ECP estimates it would need around 100 million ballot papers, including 15 million for each category of seats.

Similarly, it would require printing around 1.2 million nomination forms for the contestants.

K-P government is initiating biometric verification of voters in certain constituencies as a pilot project.

The work on selection and procurement of biometric verification machines has not started yet.

Local body polls on the horizon

Devolution of power to local governments, a mandatory requirement under the Constitution, had become a distant dream in the country. There is no working local government anywhere in the country since the last LG system introduced by then dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

Balochistan had held its LG polls last December but its local bodies system is yet to start functioning. The three remaining provinces were given a November 15 deadline by the Supreme Court to hold local body polls, a deadline which is unlikely to be met.

While Sindh and Punjab have completed many of the pre-requisites, they lag behind the K-P government who have submitted a formal letter to ECP requesting polls.

COMMENTS (4)

Raghu | 9 years ago | Reply

PTi is not distributing the development funds to the MPA's and to opposition seats in order for the lower level local leaders to spend the funds by them selves after LG polls. This is good thinking by PTI. On the same time, PMLN is accusing PTI of not spending the funds. It also seems that ECP is not interested in conducting elections sooner.

haronrashid seikh | 9 years ago | Reply Kp govt leave drama's with kp human we r
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