Bone of contention: ‘Willing to hold LG polls without biometric machines’

Inayatullah says K-P government cannot delay elections till September 2015

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P)government has given in to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) reservations on biometric local government (LG) polling and is willing to allow elections without the machines.

Confirming the shift in the government’s stance, Minister for Local Government Inayatullah Khan told The Daily Express on Saturday that the ECP has proposed LG polls in September next year but the K-P government wants their early completion.

“If the ECP is willing to hold elections early in the province, we are ready to backtrack on the demand for biometric system,” said Khan, adding the provincial government will not allow delaying the polls till next year.

The minister said the provincial government is ready to go to the ballots without any delay, however, he did not provide a timeframe.



While answering a question, Khan said the implementation of the biometric system in the entire country is the responsibility of the federal government and it is liable to provide ECP the relevant funds. “There is no justification for K-P paying for the installation of the system from its resources,” stated Khan.

The minister who is associated with the K-P government’s coalition party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) said if ECP is ready to hold polls under biometric system in K-P, the provincial government is bound to facilitate it. Donors can be contacted to raise funds for the implementation, he added.

Speaking about election officials, Khan said returning officers should be from the judiciary, while supporting staff can be provided by the provincial administration.

The biometric system has been a bone of contention between the K-P government and the ECP for some time. Earlier this week, the election commission expressed its inability to conduct LG polls under the biometric system before September 2015 and decided to inform the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

CM issues statement

In a statement issued from the information directorate, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said his government is ready to hold LG polls and asked the ECP to refrain from shifting the blame on K-P for its own state of unpreparedness.

Of all provinces, only K-P has passed the necessary legislation, made amendments to the legal framework, completed the delimitation process and informed the ECP of it preparedness for the polls, the CM said in the statement.

K-P completed all prerequisites and asked the commission to hold elections in three phases because of inclement weather conditions and security concerns. It should not be blamed for the delay as the province is not at fault, said the statement.

The CM further said in April, a meeting was held between NADRA and the provincial government, and the authority appreciated the government’s concept and asked that it be implemented.

“The ground reality is that neither NADRA nor the ECP is prepared for LG polls. The commission does not have the necessary ballot papers and other material, while NADRA does not have the equipment to conduct polls through biometric machines,” stated the handout, quoting the CM.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2014.