A tall order: All set for LG polls, says CM Khattak

Does not mention onground preparations to actually hold local bodies’ elections.

PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) chief minister Pervez Khattak has said the provincial government has completed all possible preparations for local government (LG) polls. It is possible to conduct them even on short notice, he said, according to a handout issued on Saturday.

Under the new LG system, in addition to municipality issues, the powers of almost all departments, including health and education, have been transferred to village and union councils. Khattak said this at the CM Secretariat while talking to various delegations, including one comprising of ex-nazims.



Khattak went on to state the Azadi march in Islamabad was launched in the larger interest of the public. The slogan of ‘Go Nawaz Go’ was even heard at a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz rally, said the CM, taking a dig at Pir Sabir Shah’s slip of tongue on Friday in Peshawar.

LG: From paper to reality

Asides from Khattak’s statement, however, little has been made public regarding onground progress or expected delays in holding the polls.

Responding to a question, Iqbal Khan, the media coordinator for the LG minister, told The Express Tribune the K-P government is ready to conduct polls but the ball is in the court of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). “We have already issued a letter to the ECP that we want to hold the polls,” said Khan. “Now the ECP needs to announce a date.”

However, Khan said, after the government completed delimitation and told the ECP it was done, the apex court issued an order stating that delimitation falls under the ECP’s purview leaving the matter unresolved as yet.

In April, the K-P government had conceded that its long-standing demand of conducting the polls using biometrics might not be entirely workable keeping in view the amount of time required to procure and then implement the system. However, the government did state plans to carry out biometric verification of voters in Ghazil tehsil of Haripur district as a test case.

ECP officials had then clarified even a test-run of biometrics in one tehsil would require the same amount of time needed to implement the system in the entire province. As no local companies manufacture the equipment, the commission would have to issue international tenders for procurement.

Under the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), the process would roughly take three months to complete. An estimated 50,000 machines would be needed for the entire province. Confining the process to Ghazi alone would reduce the required number of machines to roughly 500 to 1,000. However, the amount of time required in fulfilling official regulations would be the same for both scenarios.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2014.