Polling for second phase of local government elections in 15 districts of Sindh and 12 districts of Punjab will be held today, while the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has cancelled polls in 81 UCs of Sindh amidst strong protest by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Punjab districts include Sargodha, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Attock, Jhelum, Mianwali, Chiniot, Toba Tek Singh, Hafizabad, Mandi Bahauddin, Sheikhupura and Khanewal while in Sindh, polling will be held in Tando Muhammad Khan, Matiari, Dadu, Thatta, Sajawal, Shaheed Benazirabad and Umerkot.
On the other hand, polling in Sanghar has been postponed due to security reasons.
A total of over 20 million voters will exercise their right of franchise in the two provinces.
Following the Sindh High Court verdict on the suspension of recently carried out delimitation, the ECP has postponed the forthcoming local government elections in 81 union councils (UCs) of Sindh.
Secretary ECP Babar Yaqoob Fateh Muhammad shared the district names while addressing a press conference on Wednesday.
Polls have been postponed in 81 union councils (UCs), 15 town committees and four municipal committees in districts Hyderabad, Badin, Tharparker, Tando Allahyar, Mirpur Khas, Shaheed Benazirabad, Naushero Feroze and Jamshoro.
The decision of the delay came after an apex court authorised the ECP to postpone the LG elections in eight districts.
A three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, on Wednesday took up the ECP’s appeal against Sindh High Court (SHC) order.
The SHC had said the rural areas of UCs merged into urban UCs and vice versa through delimitations were of no legal effect.
The high court while hearing petitions of different political parties, including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), had ordered that revised lists be issued after the reversal of such changes in 24 hours.
However, the ECP approached the apex court, seeking suspension of the high court verdict.
The ECP also requested that if the order could not be suspended then time be extended for revising the delimitation constituencies list.
During the hearing, counsel for ECP Munir Ahmad Paracha admitted that the apex court order regarding delimitation had been violated.
The chief justice remarked the court will not allow anyone violate its orders, adding those ECP officials who did so shall be taken to task.
He also asked the ECP counsel to revise the delimitation process within two weeks. The hearing has been adjourned for two weeks.
PPP PROTESTS ANNOUNCEMENT:
Meanwhile, the PPP has strongly criticised the ECP’s decision to postpone LB polls in eight Sindh districts, while Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has welcomed the decision.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in a tweet on Wednesday evening termed the ECP’s decision to postpone LB elections in certain union councils (UCs) to be “extremely controversial”.
On the other hand, MQM hailed the ECP for deferring polls in “PPP-made local constituencies”.
MQM Rabita Committee in a statement accused PPP of gerrymandering manipulation of boundaries of an electoral constituency so as to favour one party “PPP made illegal delimitations and deprived the people of urban areas of their right of representation, by merging rural areas with urban,” the Rabita Committee said.
The ECP has finalised all necessary administrative and security measures to ensure free, fair and transparent polling process in all other areas.
The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had won a majority of seats in Punjab whereas Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) grabbed most seats in the Sindh province in the first phase of local government elections.
The two other provinces, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the northwest and Balochistan in the west, voted earlier this year. Khan won in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in May but Nawaz Sharif and his allies came out on top in Balochistan in January.
Direct elections to local bodies in districts, which are sub-divisions of Pakistan’s provinces, were last held in 2005 under General Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in a bloodless coup.
So far so nice. There is tug-of-war between the two main political parties of Sind. And other stake-holders like Dr Mirza and Arbab have also their reservations. Truck-loads of Haris were brought by the Waderas in Bilawal's Jalsas (like they did in his Karachi Jalsa) but all has gone waste. What one fails to understand is , if the High Court decisions are 'rejected' or over-rulled by the Supreme Court, does it mean that decisions in the lower courts are 'manipulated' ?
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