Uncertainty mars LG polls

Parties losing patience over persistent delay in LG polls

Karachi: Jamat-e-Islami seems to have lost patience in the wake of the prolonged delay in holding the local government election in Karachi. The lawyer representing two office bearers of the party who challenged the third postponement of the elections in Karachi made it loud and clear during a recent hearing of the petition when he refused to leave rostrum for the PTI counsel to advance his arguments on a similar petition.

During the November 4 hearing, when Usman Farooq Advocate of JI was making his submissions, the Chief Justice intervened midway and asked him to allow Pakistan Tahreek-i-Insaf counsel Abdul Wahab Baloch to advance his arguments.

This disturbed the flow of Farooq’s arguments, who submitted that he would not argue further if the bench did not like to hear him. But before leaving the rostrum Farooq’s gestures made it abundantly clear that he was not happy with the sudden intervention from the court.

When he was asked to stop, Farooq was explaining to the bench how strange has been the conduct of the election commission which earlier opposed the petitions of the MQMP and PTI seeking to postpone the local bodies elections in June.

He submitted that the Sindh government from day one was reluctant in proceeding with the local bodies election as such it deliberately delayed the delimitation process by not seeking suggestions from the stakeholders and providing them details of the required maps for delimitation of the union and town committees as per Sindh Local Government Act and Election Act 2017.

The Election Act makes the local government polls mandatory within 120 days after the expiry of the previous term. However, neither the Chief Election Commissioner nor Election Commissioner for Sindh seems bothered while the Sindh government kept deferring the date of initiating process of delimitation in accordance with the population census of 2017.

The JI counsel apprised the court that some political parties including MQM and PTI have been pressurizing the Election Commission for postponing the elections way before the holding of the first phase of the June 26 elections. The petitions of PTI and MQMP were rejected by another bench of SHC headed by Justice Junaid Ghafar after the ECP submission that its preparations for holding the elections were complete.

The Sindh government, which is now seeking a delay in holding the second phase of the election, which was originally scheduled for July 24, had sided with the ECP’s opinion against delaying the first phase. The MQMP even filed an appeal in the Supreme Court to halt the second phase of polling rescheduled for August 28, however the same was rejected by the apex court which directed it to hold elections as per the new polling date.

While postponing the elections for the third time, the ECP in its press release had stated to reconsider the new date for polling in a meeting to be held within fifteen days, however, there is no information about any ECP meeting in this regard though the fifteen days lapsed a day before, the counsel apprised the court saying that it appears that ECP has become subordinate to the Sindh government as it has taken each request of the Sindh government on its face value without investigation that the circumstance being cited do exist.

“The Sindh government is ready to provide police force for the PTI long March and international exhibition but not ready to help ECP discharge its constitutional obligations of holding local bodies election in Karachi”, the counsel argued. The counsel for the ECP apprised the bench that the electoral body has not fixed a new date for elections, however, it has fixed this matter for hearing on November 9. The ECP has also decided to summon Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Jamaat-e-Islami to share their input on the issue of LG elections in Karachi “if they want to.”

The decision to fix the Karachi LG elections case for hearing was taken in an ECP meeting presided over by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, a couple of days ago, the ECP counsel apprised the bench adding that a report of the Sindh government also came under the discussion.

According to the report, the provincial government cannot engage police personnel for security duties for LG polls keeping in view that scores of police personnel have been assigned to the federal capital against PTI’s Haqeeqi Azadi March.

Police officials are also being engaged for Covid vaccination and the 11th Defence Exhibition and Seminar scheduled from November 15-18 in Karachi.

Last month, the ECP accused the Interior Ministry of refusing to ensure the static deployment of military and paramilitary personnel in the LG elections for the Karachi division, which were scheduled on October 23. It announced to delay polls for the third time, citing a shortage of security personnel.

The bench after hearing the counsel directed the IGP Sindh and DG Sindh Rangers to file their replies to the petitions particularly mentioning the availability of two law enforcement agencies personnel for security duty for the LG polls.

Due to floods, the ECP had earlier indefinitely postponed the LG elections for Hyderabad Division, however, decided to hold the election in Karachi as per the amended date on October 23. But on the request of the Sindh government, the elections in Karachi were also postponed without mentioning any new polling date.