LG polls: JI chief suspends campaign on election commission’s notice

Sirajul Haq was issued notice for violating ECP’s code of conduct

ISLAMABAD: In response to a notice from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the chief of the country’s main politico-religious party has stopped campaigning for his party’s candidates for the upcoming local government (LG) elections.

In his written reply to the ECP, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq informed the poll supervisory body that he would  not be campaigning for his party’s LG candidates anymore.

The ECP had issued a notice to Senator Haq for ‘violating ECP’s code of conduct’ by holding a public meeting in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

According to the ECP code of conduct, no member of parliament and provincial assemblies or those holding high offices cannot take part in the election campaign of any candidate.

The ECP had issued notice to the JI chief after media reports claimed that he was campaigning for his party’s LG candidates. It had directed Senator Haq to submit a reply within two days and appear in person at the ECP office in Islamabad.

Of late, the ECP had also restrained PTI chairman Imran Khan from campaigning after the schedule for the LG polls was issued. Imran, however, called the ECP decision strange, saying that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had doled out Rs46 billion for development projects after the LG poll schedule was unveiled.

The ECP has notified 3,428 polling stations for male and 3,059 for women in K-P for LG polls while 4,724 combined polling stations have been established. A total of 84,420 candidates are contesting in May 30 LG polls against 41,762 seats.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2015.