ECP powerless against army of political billboards

Although, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has clearly ordered all political parties to remove political wall chalking, billboards and party flags displayed throughout the metropolitan, one can still find political banners and messages splattered all around the city, which clearly reflects that neither the political parties nor the local administration are ready to comply with the ECP’s order.
The ECP, on 7th March, 2013, had set 11th March as the deadline for removal of political wall chalking and billboards from the city.
Moreover, all the provincial election commissioners and chief secretaries were also instructed to ensure compliance of the directives with regard to removal of billboards and wall chalking. “If billboards and wall chalking are not removed the DCO and DPO concerned will be held responsible for failing to carry out their duties,” per the order.
Interestingly, the deadline had expired but the Sindh government, as well as the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC), did not launch any campaign to remove the party flags, wall chalking and billboards that according to analysts reflected on how much the ECP was lacking in real power.
Instead, the trends of wall chalking and installing party flags in every street and road were still in place, while the new banners on display have been upgraded in size, according to a detailed survey conducted by Pakistan Today.
However, the KMC sources confided in this scribe that it had received no instructions from the home department or the chief secretary for the removal of party flags. The process of removing wall chalking and party flags could never be carried out successfully unless the political parties did it themselves, they added.
Besides, the sources said that the ECP should have taken notice of the ongoing campaigns of various political parties on news channels that also fell under the jurisdiction of the ECP’s order. Meanwhile, nothing was being done to restrict the political parties from spending millions of rupees under the head of promotion, the sources opined.
The above mentioned survey revealed that the all the roads and streets o the city were decorated with wide billboards and party flags of different political parties.
The major artery of the city namely, Shahra-e-Faisal, were adorned with billboards and flags of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). Main University Road was claimed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), while Orangi, Korangi, Pehlwan Goth, Safoora Goth and Sohrab Goth areas were covered by the Awami National Party (ANP). Furthermore, Ibrahim Hyderi, Quaidabad, Defence More, Karsaz carried the posters of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).Almost all the political and religious parties have contributed to the mess by fixing their party flags and installing heavy billboards at different locations of the metropolitan.
Furthermore, if one was going from Karachi to Kashmore, he could find hundreds of thousands of billboards, wall chalking and party flags of almost all the political parties and the major share belonged to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
MQM’s central leader Khawaja Izharul Hassan told Pakistan Today that the ECP had fixed expenditure of Rs 1.5 million for MNA election and Rs 1 million for MPA election, however it was difficult that these instructions could be implemented by the commission.
“The MQM was not against the delimitation of the constituencies and it is of the view that the process be duplicated in the entire country. In 2001, MQM lost six constituencies after the delimitation process concluded and the party worked hard in those constituencies to secure the same in 2008 general elections,” he added.
It was not the first time that removal of wall chalking and billboards was ordered, as the same was announced time and again by both the home department and the city administration and even with the imposition of Section 144 of the CrPC. However, no pragmatic effort was made to make the city neat and clean.
Most interestingly, when the government offices housed at Civic Centres were visited, it was also revealed that the wall chalking and party flags were also installed in every office.
In the past, the coordination committees of the coalition partners had reached a consensus that banners and wall chalking should be removed from government buildings.
The decision to this effect was made in a high level meeting chaired by former Sindh CM Qaim Ali that was also attended by the leaders of PPP, coalition partners MQM and ANP.
After the meeting, the city government and the town administration had started removing all kinds of graffiti including party banners, flags and posters from government properties and buildings. However, all the process came to a grinding halt for reasons best known to the city’s managers.
Pakistan Today tried to contact KMC Senior Directive Enterprise and Investment Promotion Farhan Durrani to seek official version regarding removal of the billboards, however, his cell phone remained unanswered.