Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) members submitted three resolutions in the Assembly Secretariat over Punjab government’s failure to hold local elections.
One of the resolutions was submitted jointly by the two parties while Shaukat Basra, PPP’s deputy parliamentary leader in Punjab Assembly, and Mohsin Leghari of the PML-Q also submitted individual resolutions.
The resolutions stated the local government institutions in the province now lacked legal cover since the Punjab government had not notified the Election Commission about a date for local elections. The resolutions also objected to Punjab government not moving an amendment to the Local Government Ordinance 2001, extending the deadline, approved by the provincial assembly.
The resolutions also demand that the Punjab government hold local elections immediately.
The government had appointed administrators to replace elected officials on February 4, 2010 and said that elections would be held in six months. Then on October 21, 2010, the government amended Section 179-A of Local Government Ordinance 2001. According to the amendment it had to notify the Election Commission about the date for holding local elections within a year. The deadline expired on October 21.
Governor Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, while speaking at a local hotel, also expressed reservations over the Punjab government’s failure to hold elections. He said he would take up the issue after the period of mourning for Nusrat Bhutto ends.
Shaukat Mehmood Basra termed the correspondence between Punjab government and district governments “illegal”. He also called Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif “a dictator”. He asked that the Lahore High Court chief justice take suo moto notice of the issue. “If the court doesn’t do so, the judiciary-PML-N conspiracy will be exposed,” he said.
Sardar Mohsin Khan Leaghari said that had the local governments been in place, last year’s flood and this year’s dengue situation could have been managed better.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2011.
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