The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Sunday criticised the Punjab government’s decision to hold non-party local government (LG) polls in the province.
In a statement issued, Dr Shireen Mazari, PTI central information secretary, said that to hold non-party LG polls was a revival of the dictatorial legacies of Zia and Musharraf.
Instead of strengthening the democratic norms from the grassroots up, PML-N was undermining the roots of democracy. The PML-N feared that they would be exposed at the grassroots for lack of support or capacity to deliver or both.
She said the PTI believed that a democratic culture was only as strong as its roots; and, by having non-party elections at the LG level, the PML-N was undermining a democratic electoral culture where people are trained in Party politics comprising ideological commitment and discipline from the village to the national level. This is the way of dictators and bureaucracies to strengthen themselves against the political forces within the country, she added and expressed dismay at the PML-N for aiding the same and thereby strengthening these forces while weakening political democratic forces at grassroots level.
Dr Mazari also pointed out that the PTI felt it was wrong to increase the eligibility age for candidates to 25 years for LG polls. Instead younger community workers and political activists should have been allowed to have access to contesting elections and learning the political dos and don’ts so that by 25 years of age they would have been trained in a strong democratic culture and been better equipped to serve the nation at the provincial and national level legislatures.
