The Punjab government will not hold local bodies’ elections in November this year because of their well placed apprehension of anticipated electoral debacle attributed to their bad governance pushing its popularity at the lowest rung, said Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) Punjab President Manzoor Wattoo in a statement issued on Monday.
He said that the government had no delusion of its popularity among the people due to the back-to-back crisis of theirs that reflects their inaptitude and the height of mismanagement. The fear of losing local bodies’ elections in the face of erosion of their political support in the province will force them to contemplate further delay with a view to complete the five years, he said.
He argued that the petrol crisis in the recent past exposed their inaptness to the core because they failed to anticipate the gravity of the situation when the data of import and consumption of petrol of every litre was available. Their negligence and complacency brought the normal life in the province to a grinding halt putting the people in great discomfort, he pointed out.
He added that the Punjab chief minister had been postponing the elections under one pre-text or another since 2008 because he was averse of the devolution and heavily tilted towards concentration of power. He is keeping more than dozen departments under his direct control and others were being run through bureaucracy and the ministers are abjectly relegated to the secondary position, he added.
Wattoo said the local bodies’ funds must not be transferred by the government like in the past for the completion of the other projects which were out of the ambit of the local government.