Birds of a feather: PTI, JI, AJIP join forces for local government polls

Reject chances of pre-poll rigging, say elections will be ‘exemplary’.

PESHAWAR:

The tripartite alliance of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan and Jamaat-e-Islami will join forces to contest the upcoming local government (LG) elections in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The three parties will field candidates who will be ‘mutually-agreed upon’ for local government seats at the tehsil and district level. The alliance also extends to cantonment board elections. Polls will be held on May 30.

Leaders of the three parties announced their decision in a joint press conference at the cabinet room of the Civil Secretariat on Friday. “The tripartite alliance has decided to unite and contest the local government polls,” announced K-P PTI General Secretary Khalid Masood. He was accompanied by JI K-P Naib Ameer Dr Iqbal Khalil, AJIP Chairman Shahram Khan Tarakai, K-P Senior Minister Inayatullah Khan and K-P Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani.

‘The parties’ district and tehsil-level committees have been informed about the details to nominate a candidate for a seat and will sit together to decide which party will contest from a specific area with the support of the alliance.”

A candidate will be nominated based on the strength and popularity of his party in a particular area. Masood stressed that the coalition would not form an alliance with anyone from the opposition parties.

Khalil said that they wanted to conduct local government polls in the province within the first year of coming into power, but there were certain hurdles in the way. He said the three parties constituted joint committees at the town and district level for the nomination of candidates and the process will be completed in a week. “These will be exemplary elections and completely free and fair,” he asserted. “The system adopted for the local government is unmatched as the powers will be transferred to the village council and mohallah level.”

AJIP chief Shahram Khan Tarakai underlined that all three parties had the same mission: to transfer power to the grass-root level. “The previous local government system was vague and ministers would interfere with the matters of nazims and councillors, but this will no longer be allowed.”

The elections will be held on party basis at the district and tehsil levels, while village and neighborhood seats would be contested on a non-party basis. However, opposition parties in K-P, including Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam (JUI-F), have challenged the basis for village-level elections. “If the court decides in favour of the opposition parties, elections will be delayed,” said Minister for Local Government Inayatullah Khan.

Explaining the reasons behind the delay in local government elections, the minister said amendments would be necessary to the K-P Local Government Act 2013, adding the same would be complicated and lengthy. “If the elections are to be conducted on party basis at the village and neighborhood level, issuing party tickets to almost 40,000 candidates would be difficult and time consuming,” Inayatullah said.

To a question about the possibility of pre-poll rigging and increase in development funds in their strongholds, he said the government was working on ADP-2014 projects which could not be halted regardless of any elections. Ghani and Masood assured that ministers and MPAs would not visit their constituencies and announce schemes in a bid to bag votes.

The elections are conducted by returning officers (ROs) and district returning officers (DROs) selected from the bureaucracy by the Election Commission of Pakistan. While refuting allegations of possible rigging, Inayatullah said the coalition would also welcome ROs and DROs if they were selected from the judiciary.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2015.