A show of independence: Parties fail to impact Cantt elections

Political forces now wooing victorious candidates.

PESHAWAR: It was independent candidates that took a surprisingly high number of seats in the recently-held cantonment board polls. At the same time, some key political players such as QWP, ANP-Wali, JUI-F and PML-Quaid refrained from the election process.

The victorious independent candidates are now being wooed by political forces, with only JI being successful thus far. The religious party will now have Waris Khan Afridi, a winning candidate from Peshawar, in its midst after he announced he was joining JI. However, PTI is also going full speed ahead with its recruitment drive, observers said.

Cantonment elections concluded on April 25 across the province. Independent candidates were successful in 14 out of K-P’s 32 wards despite the presence of strong political parties. As for the parties, PTI secured 11 seats; PML-N and ANP took two seats each, while PPP won a seat.

In Peshawar cantonment, PML-N contested four wards, but failed to win a single seat. PML-Quaid and JUI-F threw their support behind ANP which was contesting five ward seats.

The relative lack of success of PML-N and ANP in Peshawar cantonment left many observers surprised.

Mass confusion

JUI-F K-P Information Secretary Haji Abdul Jalil Jan told The Express Tribune his party does not fully grasp the cantonment board election set-up. Regardless, it decided to support ANP from the onset.

He blamed the Election Commission of Pakistan for the lack of awareness over cantonment board polls. He said the election body had failed to run a publicity campaign and JUI-F was unaware of the procedure to submit nomination papers.

“Parties were told of the nomination process just a day before the elections,” claimed Jan. He said the party’s provincial leadership was engaged in negotiations with allies PPP and ANP for the upcoming local government elections.

Though he slammed the government for not running an awareness campaign for cantonment board elections, he said JUI-F was prepared for local government polls. However, the information secretary was unclear whether the tripartite alliance will contest under a single election symbol or separate ones as traditionally used by the parties.

Meanwhile, the distribution formula for 184 seats has been finalised between the tripartite alliance for LG polls. It was decided that JUI-F would contest 51 seats, ANP 70 and PPP 63.

“Alliance parties will support each other against rival candidates. If any party worker violates the conditions of the alliance, strict action would be taken against them,” he said.

ANP’s provincial information secretary Sardar Hussain Babak echoed JUI-F’s views and said delaying tactics from the ECP caused confusion among his party’s ranks. He also said it was unfortunate that disgruntled ANP candidates contested against their own party members in the cantonment elections.

However, he also remained confident that his party was in a strong position ahead of the local government elections and would try to secure the maximum number of seats.

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