LG by-elections garner little enthusiasm

Only 125 votes cast at the Khatoon-e-Pakistan polling station no 16 and 160 in polling station no 17 by day's end

KARACHI: The voter turn-out in the by-elections for local bodies in Karachi and other districts of Sindh remained abysmally low on Sunday.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan's notification, by-elections on 65 seats for local bodies, including chairperson, vice chairperson and general members, were held in 29 districts of Sindh on Sunday. In Karachi, a total of 114 candidates participated in the by-elections for 22 municipal seats across the six districts of Karachi, which included Karachi District Council, Malir Municipality, Korangi Municipality, South District Municipal Corporation (DMC), West DMC and East DMC.

The polling process began at 8am and continued till 4pm, but most voters trickled into the polling stations after 2pm. The first vote at Khatoon-e-Pakistan polling station for UC 18, Civic Centre, was cast at 9:45am, while the second vote was cast at 12pm. By 4pm, only 125 votes had been cast at the Khatoon-e-Pakistan polling station number 16 and 160 in polling station number 17.

The voter turnout for UC 13, Martin Quarters, also remained low. By 3pm, only 70 votes had been cast at Madni Primary School polling station number 3, while 100 votes had been cast in polling station number 4. The turnout in other municipal seats of the city also remained low. In addition to this, the polling agents at most stations arrived late which caused the process to start late.
One of the reasons for the low turnout could be the lack of interest exhibited by the political parties.



Media coverage
Media personnel faced severe difficulties in covering the day's proceedings due to multiple reasons. One of the major reasons was that the Election Commission of Pakistan did not issue election cards. Also, the Rangers and the polling staff deployed at most of the polling stations did not allow journalists to pursue election coverage. At some polling stations, where the journalists were allowed to enter, only partial information was provided by the staff.

Security situation
The polling process for the most part concluded calmly, without incident in Karachi. Police and Rangers were deployed at every polling station and the election preparation was also completed in time. Election material and ballot papers were handed over to the related Returning Officers (RO), which were in turn handed over to the presiding officers of Saturday.

Background

Initially, in Sindh, 141 seats were up for grabs. Of these, candidates on 73 seats were elected unopposed and no candidate filed nomination papers for three seats.
In Karachi, nomination papers of 170 candidates were approved for election on 25 vacant seats in accordance with the election schedule. However, out of these, 53 candidates retracted their nomination papers leaving 114 candidates in the running. Furthermore, three candidates, Muhammad Akram Baloch from UC 17 Deh Ghaggar, Javed Ahmed from UC 11 Deh Murad Memon and Shedu from UC 7 Deh Konkar, won general member seats in Malir District Council, unopposed, earlier this week. Hence, while previously eight seats of Malir Municipality and Karachi District Council were up for election, by-elections were only held on five seats in Malir district for which, 23 candidates contested.

These included district council member seats of Karachi District Council union committee UC 3 and UC 12 and three seats of Malir District Municipal Corporation for vice chairperson of UC 11, Jafar Tayar, and general member seats of UC 4, Majeed Colony, and UC 8, Moinabad.

Furthermore, four candidates contested on the general member seats in UC 8 of Korangi district, while 29 other candidates contested for two seats of chairperson in East district's UC 13 and UC 18.
In District South , 15 candidates contested for six seats of UC 13, Rexer Lane ward number 2, UC 20, Millat Nagar ward number 4, UC 22, Ranchor lane ward number 1 and 2, UC 23, Nanak Wara ward number 1, and UC 27, Rattan Talao ward number 4.
In District West, 22 candidates contested for two chairperson seats of UC 41 and UC 45 and two general member seats of UC 26 and UC 14. In the case of Central district, 21 candidates contested for four seats, including vice chairperson of UC 22 Hyderi and general members of UC 20, UC 40 and UC 41.