Crucial re-poll on FATA seat tomorrow

ISLAMABAD:

Re-elections in only two polling stations set up for internally displaced person (IDPs) can endanger the seat of former federal minister G G Jamal who had returned a winner from NA-39 Fata by a narrow margin of 196 votes during 2013 general elections.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is organising re-polls at two IDP polling stations on Sunday. A total of 36 candidates had contested from the constituency in the general elections.

Syed Ghazi Gulab Jamal, once a prominent cabinet member under General Pervez Musharraf, contested the polls as an independent and was declared the winner after securing 7,922 votes. His runner-up Jawad Hussain of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), who secured 7,726 votes, moved a post-election tribunal challenging Jamal’s notification as winner.

The tribunal ordered re-polls at two polling stations. That decision is now being implemented after a long legal battle between the two in higher courts.

Realising sensitivity of the poll, ECP has set up a complaint cell at its central secretariat in Islamabad to register any complaints during the re-poll.

Of the 12 seats of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) in the National Assembly, polls could not be organised in NA-38 during the last general elections due to poor law and order. The NA-42 seat remained under represented during the entire tenure of the last assembly from 2008-2013.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2016.