Voter verification: PML-N decides to move court

Party members are also expected to prepare a report on the capacity of other political parties in Sindh.

LAHORE:

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif has accepted several proposals drawn up by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) members, including one to move the issue of voter verification in Karachi before the Supreme Court.

At the same time, Nawaz has given top level party office bearers 10 days to finalise and submit reports on the party’s grand alliance at the Sindh level, PML-N officials said.

Party members are also expected to prepare a report on the capacity of other political parties to bag supporting seats at the Sindh level, they said.

Aside from submitting reports, senior party officials from the Sindh chapter were assigned tasks to speed up negotiations with political parties at the local level. The move was made in an attempt to form a grand alliance in time for the general elections.

The alliance would then contest the election against the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) at the Interior Sindh level and against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) at the Karachi level.

These decisions and others were taken during a meeting of the PML-N’s Sindh chapter at Nawaz’s Raiwind residence. Earlier, participants offered condolences on the death of the party’s late joint secretary of Sindh, Mian Taimoor, and his father. A high-level delegation of Pakistan Muslim League –Functional (PML-F) will convene a meeting with Nawaz when he returns from a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Voter verification

Participants suggested two main strategies to counter their Sindh voter verification woes.

PML-N’s Sindh General Secretary, Saleem Zia, told The Express Tribune that the party has decided to get the Supreme Court to issue a fresh order to resolve the issue of verification.

Zia said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) perceived the court ruling seeking the army’s support in voter verification just for the protection of ECP’s employees but not for the verification of voters. He added that the party would ask that the army and FC conduct voter verification along with the ECP and its staff.

Other leaders of PML-N Sindh also said that there is an immediate need for the correction of voter lists in Karachi. Nawaz directed PML-N Sindh president Syed Ghous Ali Shah to take immediate notice of the matter.

Additionally, PML-N’s Information Secretary Mushahidullah Khan said that the party had decided to stage a sit-in in front of the National Assembly against the non-implementation of a court ruling regarding voter verification in Karachi.

Khan also said that the party will not take part in by-elections which are scheduled to take place on February 18.

In a handout, Nawaz said if people gave him the opportunity to serve Pakistan in the forthcoming general elections, the restoration of law and order all over the country, including Karachi, would be at the top of his agenda.

“Like the federation and other provinces, the Peoples Party has made the people of Sindh despondent, but the people, in response, will reject the PPP in the forthcoming general elections,” said Nawaz.

The consultative meeting was attended by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Ch Nisar Ali Khan, Ghous Ali Shah, Liaquat Jatoi, Saleem Zia, Mushahidullah Khan, Ameer Bakhsh Bhutto, Imdad Chandio, Nihal Hashmi, Marvi Memon, Irfanullah Marwat and Zain Ansari.


Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2013.