KARACHI, Aug 29: The smaller parties, who have been routed in the past elections by the mainstream political parties, are striving to work out a strategy to make a way to the assembly. In this connection, two loose electoral alliances — the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, and the National Alliance — have already fielded their candidates on various seats of the National Assembly and Provincial Assembly. They have also nominated candidates against reserved seats of women and non-Muslims, and are making efforts for further local adjustment with other smaller parties and independent candidates backed by the community.

From the scrutiny of papers, which will continue till Sept 2, almost all nominations are likely to be accepted, except for those where the candidate was found underage or his proposer or seconder were from the constituency other than the seat from where one has filed nominations.

According to an initial survey, out of 402 nominations filed against 20 NA seats and out of 931 PA nominations filed against 42 seats from the Karachi city district, over 300 nominations had been filed by four major parties — the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam) and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, which comprises of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, (F) and (S), Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan and Tehreek Islami Pakistan and Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith.

This leaves in the balance over 600 nominations which were filed by those political parties which have yet to prove their electoral power in the city. Prominent among them are the Tehreek-i- Insaaf, Millat Party, National Alliance, Pakistan Awami Tehreek, Sindh Democratic Alliance, National Awami Party Pakistan, Tehreek-i-Nizam-i-Mustafa, PPP (SB) and others. Some of the parties have fielded candidates on the tickets of the National Alliance.

In view of the large constituencies which would require huge funds to reach out to the electorate and for fear of the division of votes among smaller groups, leaders of smaller parties are seen making frantic efforts to win over independents before they indulge in electioneering and incurring expenditures.

It was learnt that for this purpose, a local adjustment formula is being worked out, particularly among those candidates backed by communities to muster support in one constituency and withdrawing candidature from other ones.

This local adjustment was all the more necessary for smaller parties and political groups, as it would be difficult for them, even if they decided to contest on a few seats for the provincial assembly, to manage polling agents.

According to a rough estimate, in each PA constituency, every party or independent candidate has to arrange the services of between 200 to 300 polling agents for election day for each constituency for posting at polling booths. Likewise, on each NA constituency, a candidate has to manage between 400 to 500 polling agents. Of them, one third ought to be ladies to ensure that only genuine voters are being allowed to cast their vote. In addition, further manpower — at least more than double the number of polling agents — would be required to provide information to the intending voter and guide him to the polling stations.

For individuals and political groups, making arrangements for such a large number of trained and committed workers was not possible, and the only via-media left to them was to join hands together if they are sincerely interested to record their votes. Otherwise, all their efforts could prove to be an exercise in futility, and in most of the cases they might have to forfeit their security deposits.

Besides, these parties would also be facing problems in getting their candidates elected against reserved seats for women and non-Muslims, which are on the basis of provincial constituency.

According to electoral reforms, each province shall be a single constituency for all seats reserved for women, which are allocated to the respective provinces under clause (2)-1 (d); the constituency for all seats reserved for non-Muslims shall be the whole country in case of national assembly.

Their elections would be through the proportional representation system of political parties lists of candidates specified in Article 8F on the basis of total number of general seats won by each political party in the national assembly, and any political party securing less than five per cent of the total number of general seats in the NA or PA shall not be entitled to any reserved seats of women or non-Muslims.

The number of reserved seats for women in the NA from Sindh is 14, and in the PA 29, in addition to nine seats of non-Muslims.