Ahead of local govt elections: Political influence on delimitation of constituencies worries Sindh parties

Civil society, political parties share views on delimitation of UC constituencies.

HYDERABAD: Fear of political influences on the process of redrawing constituencies ahead of the local government elections worried the speakers at a seminar on Monday.

Representatives of 13 political parties and the civil society shared their concerns over the delimitation being carried out by the government before the upcoming local bodies elections at a seminar on ‘Delimitation and Elections’ at Indus Hotel. Most of them feared the process will be influenced by political actors and it will lack transparency unless corrective measures are taken.



The voter displacement and registration as well as the issue of denying representation to the native Sindhi people in City and Latifabad talukas of Hyderabad were also brought up for debate. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which is a major electoral stakeholder in Hyderabad, did not attend despite invitation, the organisers informed.

“Political interests appear manifest if we observe the delimitation done in the past elections,” said Ghulam Mustafa Baloch of Strengthening Participatory Organisation, which organised the seminar. “How the district administration officials will do away with its past practices is a bothering question.”

According to him, the democratic standards require that the population density, geography, historical and revenue boundaries, community interests and financial and administrative consequences of boundary determination should be taken into consideration.

“The whole exercise needs to be done in consultation with the community and stakeholders by a non-partisan committee.” He admitted though that this was not happening.



According to a Sindh government notification, the delimitation will be done at the levels of metropolitan corporations, municipal corporations, municipal committees, town committees and union councils (UC). No change will be made in the limits of deh, tappa, circle, tehsil and district.

Ashraf Lakho of Qaumi Awami Tehreek argued that the delimitation in the UCs of City and Latifabad talukas was done to favour a particular political party in the past. “The contiguous areas dominated by Sindhi population were separated and merged with those areas with higher population of the supporters of a political party,” he claimed.

In the 2005 local bodies elections, the MQM candidates won 18 UCs in City and 12 in Latifabad talukas. However, Lakho claimed that if fair delimitation takes place, the Sindhi population could elect seven UC nazims in each of the two talukas.

Displaced voters

The speakers also highlighted the issue of displaced voters whose votes were registered on their permanent addresses in different districts of Sindh while they have been living in Hyderabad since a long time. An overwhelming majority of such voters are from Qasimabad, which is home to people from all parts of Sindh. “At least 200,000 voters were displaced from the district before the May 11 polls,” claimed a former UC nazim from Qasimabad, Mehboob Abro.

The regional election commissioner, Attaur Rehman, admitted that his office received a number of complaints about the missing voters. “The people who want to register their vote in Hyderabad can do this before the election schedule for the local polls is announced.”

Zulfiqar Halepoto of the advocacy group Sindh Democratic Forum opined that the struggle against the LG Ordinance 2012 was the second strongest movement by the Sindhi society after Kalabagh Dam in the last two decades. The leader of Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (F) Maulana Taj Mohammad Nahiyon objected to making the deputy commissioner as the head of the district election tribunal. He recommended that the tribunal should have a judge.

The district steering committee of the political parties announced on that occasion that they will prepare a set of recommendations for the delimitation process to ensure transparency and fairness. The proposals will be handed over in a few days to the deputy commissioner, Nawaz Soho.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2013.