LG elections: JUI-F, PPP and ANP alliance extended to Hazara

Opposition parties announce committee heads for several districts.

ABBOTABAD: The opposition’s tripartite alliance for local government (LG) polls will also extend to Hazara, the three parties announced on Sunday.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP) shared the decision after a meeting at the residence of Pir Alamzeb Shah, JUI-F’s local leader, on Sunday.

JUIF’s senior leader MPA Maulana Attaur Rehman, former senator and provincial president of PPP Rahim Dad Khan, ANP’s Mian Iftikhar Hussain, JUI-F MNA Qari Muhammad Yusuf, among other prominent individuals, attended the closed-door meeting.

Speaking to the media after, Rehman, Hussain and Rahim said the parties will contest the LG polls from a single platform and will emerge victorious as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has failed to deliver the promised change.

Hussain added both central and provincial governments were formed after rigging the May 11 polls, “But we accepted the results for the sake of democracy.”

About the alliance, Rehman said the parties have constituted a fifteen-member committee with five members from each party in Hazara along the pattern of committees in Peshawar, DI Khan and other divisions of the province.  The committee is empowered to finalise joint candidates across Hazara.

The names of district chiefs of alliances committees were also announced.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2014.