Postponement of polls in CEC’s village raises eyebrows

Some close relatives of Sardar Muhammad Raza contesting UC polls at Namli Maira

ISLAMABAD: In a strange development, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has postponed a crucial election scheduled at the native village of the Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Muhammad Raza ‘under mysterious circumstances’.

The said election was scheduled for today, December 21, at Mamli Maira village’s Union Council 59 in the district Abbottabad of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), but has now been postponed.

Namli Maira is the CEC’s village and some of his close relatives from Sardar family are contesting the polls, sources in ECP headquarters told The Express Tribune.

Sources said the election has been postponed citing the snow factor but reports received from that area suggest light snowfall which does not necessitate any urgency to postpone the polls.



Interestingly, neither the contesting candidates nor the District Election Commission in Abbottabad were in favour of postponement of the poll but the ECP headquarters directed the District Election Commission to postpone the election for an indefinite period.

“The election in any constituency is postponed mainly due to security reasons; fear of terrorism, bloodshed, any other form of violence or related pretexts. It just doesn’t make sense why the polls were postponed citing snowfall,” a source said.

He claimed that the ECP had adequate capacity to hold the polls even under heavy snow and it had conducted polls in such conditions in the past.

The election in Union Council 59 Namli Maira was announced after the death of senior Pakistan Teheek-e-Insaf leader Sardar Shafqat who was the chairman of the said Union Council.

He died due to cardiac arrest on September 10 following which the election schedule for the said position was announced. The ECP top officials were not available for comments despite repeated attempts.