All geared up: Tripartite alliance urges judiciary to supervise LG polls

JI, JUI-F leaders in Chitral decide to join hands for upcoming elections.

CHITRAL/ PESHAWAR: The recently-revived tripartite alliance of Awami National Party, Pakistani Peoples Party and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl has urged the judiciary to supervise the local bodies’ elections in the province.

This was said at a news conference held at Bacha Khan Markaz on Wednesday by leaders of all three parties.

“We have been informed that some parties are preparing to rig the elections,” said Awami National Party Central General Secretary and president of the alliance, Mian Iftikhar Hussain. “We will strongly resist such efforts in the upcoming elections.”

According to the ANP leader, the provincial government had decided to announce local government polls in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on the directives of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.  “As a result, free and fair elections can only be achieved under the judiciary’s supervision,” he said.

Hussain said the decision to conduct elections for neighbourhood and village councils on a non-party basis has raised concerns of potential rigging.

The alliance asked the Election Commission of Pakistan to take notice of this, saying elections should be held on party-basis at all the tiers of the local government. Moreover, it urged the government to impose a ban on transfers and postings of government employees during the local bodies’ elections.

The ANP leader also drew attention to some inconsistencies in the electoral process. “A limited number of village councils have been constituted as compared to the population of the areas,” he added.

Joining hands

Local leaders from the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl have joined hands for the upcoming local government polls in Chitral.

This was announced by JI Chitral chief Haji Maghfirat Shah and JUI-F Amir in the district Qari Abdur Rehman Qureshi during a news conference at Chitral Press Club.

District leaders of both parties said they had agreed on a strategy to nominate candidates for the upcoming polls. They said 16 out of 24 union council seats from the district have been equally distributed between the parties while eight have been set aside for independent candidates.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2015.