ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: The Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) appeared set on Tuesday to make gains in Wednesday’s by-elections across the country as opposition parties complained of foul play by the ruling party.
As PML-Q dismissed the opposition charges as baseless, the Election Commission said it had “adopted all possible measures to ensure that the by-elections are held in a free, fair and impartial manner.”
Wednesday’s voting for 10 National Assembly seats and 19 of the four provincial assemblies will be the first popularity test of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s 53-day-old government and of the PML-Q since it emerged as the largest single party in the National Assembly following the Oct 10 general elections.
Political sources said the PML-Q and its allies were likely to grab most of the seats mainly because of the increase in its influence as the ruling party at the Centre and in three of the four provinces.
Complaints of wrongdoings came from all the three main opposition groups — the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) — whose nominees are contesting against the ruling coalition separately or jointly.
The charges centred on personal participation in the campaign by Jamali and promises of development funds and schemes to constituencies where the by-elections became due to fill seats vacated by those who made a choice of retaining one seat after winning either two National Assembly seats or one National Assembly and one provincial assembly seat.
Seven of the 10 National Assembly seats at stake and most of the 19 provincial seats — 11 in Punjab, five in Sindh, two in the NWFP and one in Balochistan — were vacated by members of the PML-Q and its allies.
OPPOSITION FEARS: “Those who returned to the assemblies and formed the government through foul play cannot be trusted,” a PML-N spokesman told Dawn.
“They are bound to play foul once again in the by-elections,” party information secretary Mohammad Siddique-ul-Farooq said, accusing Jamali and other government functionaries of flouting Election Commission (EC) instructions against making promises of benefits ahead of elections.
“The whole government machinery down from the prime minister is involved,” PPP spokesman Nazir Dhoki said, complaining specially about Rawalpindi’s NA-56 constituency where Jamali and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Illahi campaigned for PML-Q candidate Sheikh Raashid Shafique, a nephew of Information and Media Development Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.
“Complaints have been received from every place of officers being transferred (to benefit ruling party candidates), use of funds and announcement of development schemes by ministers and Nazimeen,” he said.
But PML-Q organising secretary Azim Chaudhry said there was nothing wrong in announcing development plans for any area in a developing country, adding that similar pre-election promises had been made even by the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto when he was prime minister in the 1970s and later by his daughter Benazir Bhutto.
EC MEASURES: The Election Commission said CEC Irshad Hasan Khan had directed the provincial governments to ensure maintenance of law and order at polling stations and in by-election constituencies “so that voters may be able to cast their vote without any fear and hindrance.”
Any problem or a situation arising at a polling station or in a constituency must be reported by the concerned returning officer or district returning officer to their respective Provincial Election Commissioner (PEC) or the EC member for reme-dial measures under the law, it said.
It said the four commission members — one in each province — had been authorised to “take such action or to pass such orders as they may deem fit in accordance with law on a complaint or a report received by them directly or through the PEC, district returning officer, returning officer concerned or an officer on election duty.”
The four members are: Justice Mohammad Ashraf Leghari of the Sindh High Court, Justice Nasim Sikandar of the Lahore High Court, Justice Ahmad Khan Lashari of the Balochistan High Court and Justice Qazi Ehsanullah Qureshi of the Peshawar High Court.
LOCAL HOLIDAY: The CEC has also ordered the provincial governments to declare local holiday for Wednesday in the following by-election constituencies:
