19 January 2005	Wednesday	08 Zilhaj 1425

ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has expressed concern over the proposed reduction in the union council seats from 21 to 13 in the country.

PPP spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar, in a statement issued here on Tuesday , said such a move would adversely affect the representation of disadvantaged groups of society including women, labourers and peasants.

Even though the percentage of seats of the disadvantaged groups will remain unchanged their representation in absolute terms will go down drastically thereby dis empowering them, he added. Mr Babar said it had been estimated that if the plan was implemented, women seats would be cut down from 40,000 to just 9,000.

He said earlier the regime had announced to hold local elections on party basis but soon had cold feet and decided to have non-party elections. The reversal of the decision had only exposed the vulnerability of the ruling party, he added.

"The desire of the ruling party to monopolize power was having a detrimental affect on Pakistan's journey from military dictatorship to civilian rule." The senator said it appeared that despite gerrymandering and manipulations the regime was finding it difficult to control the union councils any more.

As these grass-root representative bodies were difficult to control, the regime has decided to cut down their strength hoping that it would be easier to manipulate truncated union councils, he added.

Simultaneously, he said, the regime was also planning to change the electoral college for the nazims. Under the new plan, the electoral college for electing district nazim would be reduced from 2,100 to 140 in a district comprising 100 union councils.

He said the PPP apprehended that it was being done to make the manipulation of election of district nazim easier. "The PPP expresses alarm that the rulers were toying with the country and tinkering with its political institutions as if these were no more than golf courses and polo grounds for them," he added.