LG elections: Poll body fears it may miss Supreme Court deadline again

Blames non-cooperative attitude of bigger provinces as reason for delay in LG elections

ISLAMABAD:

Officials at the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) have cast fresh doubts on their ability to meet the Supreme Court-anointed deadline [September 20] for holding local government polls, especially in Sindh and Punjab. For the most part, they anticipate trouble from the bigger provinces which are unlikely to cooperate with them over the issue.

On Friday, the Supreme Court ordered the provinces and the ECP to fulfill their constitutional obligation and complete the process of LG polls in Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, cantonments and Islamabad by September 20, this year.

However, some top ECP officials told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity that the September 20 deadline is likely to be missed. The election supervisory body blames the provincial governments for the extraordinary delay in holding LG polls. The previous local bodies’ system expired in 2009.

“Given the attitude of the provinces, we feel the matter might be put off once again,” said one ECP official as he attributed the delay in the LG polls to non-cooperation from the provinces.

He said the preparatory work for the L-G polls in K-P was almost complete and polls might be held there as per schedule. However, the real issue is holding elections in Punjab and Sindh, the two biggest provinces in terms of population, he added.

These provinces are yet to provide the ECP with the data needed to delimit constituencies for local councils. Delimitation is one of the key pre-requisites for kick-starting the actual process.



On March 19, last year, the Supreme Court had given the ECP and the provinces five months to hold LG polls. However, even one year after the top court’s order, the situation remains the same as little progress has been made by two the bigger provinces.

Earlier this week, the ECP asked the Sindh government to provide maps and other data related to delimitation – including the number of seats in union councils, union committees, wards in municipal committees and town committees – to mark their boundaries.

In its letter written on March 4, the ECP asked the provincial secretary LG department to provide the requisite information by March 10. This shows the ECP still does not have even the basic information on its table to start the delimitation process in the province.

Similarly, the ECP on March 3 notified the schedule to conduct delimitations in Punjab. Under this schedule, the electoral body would start the process on March 16 and complete it on July 28. However, sources in the ECP said they are still awaiting Punjab’s data for Lahore and three other bigger districts. This means the delimitation process is unlikely to complete within the schedule notified by the ECP this week.

Once the process of delimitations completes, the ECP would have to reconcile the voters’ lists in accordance with the new delimitations and print ballot papers. It is estimated that around 310 million ballot papers would be needed for Punjab and 110 million for Sindh.

The Printing Corporation of Pakistan (PCP), which is using printing machines of the 50’s, can print a maximum of 10 million ballot papers per day if runs at its full capacity.

Even if everything goes smoothly and the provinces extend full cooperation, which the ECP doubts, the electoral body will have to compromise on quality and transparency, said the officials. “We might need to squeeze the schedule of delimitation, which will compromise the public feedback on the process and hire private printers for ballot papers” one official said.

Already facing criticism over the quality of the 2013 general elections, the poll supervisory body is likely to plunge into a new controversy since the exercise of LG elections is way more extensive compared to general elections.

During hearing of the LG polls case on Thursday, ECP Acting Secretary Sher Afgan requested the top court to direct the government to buy the latest printing machines for the PCP. However, the court observed that it was not their job to pass such orders.

The apex court had also rejected ECP’s proposal for polling in three phases. The poll body had recommended holding the first phase on September 30, second on November 4 and the third on December 9, 2015.


Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2015.