Protesters oppose delayed polls in ex-FATA areas

Threaten to march on ECP’s offices, stage protest outside PM’s office

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of protesters from the erstwhile tribal areas have camped in the federal capital, demanding that elections for at least the provincial assembly in the region should be held at the same time in the rest of the country.

After the recent merger of the federally administered tribal areas (Fata) with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), elections for the provincial seats in these former tribal areas were slated to be held within a span of a year rather than with the rest of the country since the constituencies have yet to be marked.



Elections for the national assembly seats, however, are to be held on July 25, along with rest of the country.

Protesters from various parts of the tribal districts and K-P, demanding elections in the newly merged areas at the same time, have been staging a sit-in in front of the National Press Club, under the banner of Muttahida Qabail Party (MQP) for the last few days.

Addressing a news conference at the club on Sunday, leaders of the party said that on Monday, they would march to the offices of the election commission on Constitution Avenue.

Moreover, they threatened to stage a protest outside the Prime Minister’s Office unless their demands were met.

“We constitute 15 per cent of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with a population of over 10 million. We demand that elections are held in the tribal areas at the same time as in rest of the country and under the [incumbent] caretaker set-up,” demanded Habib Malik Orakzai, chairman of MQP.

He expressed the fear that unless polls in the region are delayed, any iteration held thereafter would not free, fair or transparent since there would be no caretaker set-up in place to guarantee that.

Moreover, he said that delayed polls also mean that lawmakers from the region would get four-year terms in the provincial assembly, rather than the regular five-years their colleagues would get elsewhere in the country.

“There should be no problems in holding elections in Fata at the same time since there are only 16 provincial assembly seats [from the region],” he said.



The MQP vice-chairman, though, was far more vocal and said that if general elections cannot be held in Fata with the rest of the country, the elections can be delayed in the country to accommodate the tribal region.

“If our demands are not met we will file a petition the Supreme Court. Yes, general elections can be delayed for this purpose,” argued MPQ Vice Chairman Habib Noor Orakzai.

They claimed that their protest would continue until their demands are met.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2018.