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| October 8, 2005 | Saturday | Ramazan 3, 1426 |
Nationalists lose ground in Balochistan local polls
QUETTA, Oct 7: The four-party Baloch alliance has won a few nazim seats only in Baloch areas and the Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party in Pukhtun-dominated aeas.
Ponam and the four-party alliance have been inactive over the past few months and failed to workout a joint strategy for the local body polls and took decisions only at the last minute.
All major political groups, Ponam, MMA and the ruling PML, suffered setback and lost the Quetta city nazim seat to a young PML dissident, who refused to accept the candidate nominated by the high command of his party.
Mir Maqbool Lehri was always confident about his victory and had said after filing his nomination papers, “The party’s high command has taken a wrong decision by not nominating me and I will prove it by winning the nazim’s post without the support of party leadership.”
Mir Lehri’s victory should be alarming for Baloch and Pukhtun nationalists, who would realize that without a proper political mechanism they would face a tough time in the next general elections.
If the defeat of Ponam in Quetta and the four-party Baloch alliance in Gwadar is a big blow to nationalists, the victory of a PML dissident should also worry the JUI-F which had won an MNA and three MPA seats in Quetta district in the 2002 general elections. The worst performance in Quetta was that of the JUI-F candidate who got only 34 out of 871 votes.
But the JUI-F performed quite well in containing nationalists and the Muslim League in the northern districts of the province mostly inhabited by Pukhtuns.
The National Party, a component of the four-party alliance, was divided over the poll strategy in Khuzdar and Kalat districts and one faction of the party sided with the JUI-F, a second faction went along with the PML in Kalat and a yet another faction supported the BNP-Mengal in Khuzdar.
The Balochistan National Party (Awami), which is a coalition partner in the provincial government, succeeded in capturing the nazim seats of Makran coastal area in Kech and Panjgur, but the PML won the Gwadar district nazim post after entering into an agreement with the group.
The PML retained its traditional support of pro-establishment tribal chieftains by winning nazim seats in Bolan, Sibi, Nasirabad, Jaffarabad, Jhal Magsi, Chagai, Nushki, Washuk, Barkhan and Lasbela.
One positive aspect of the local government polls was that for the first time there was no violence in the three phases of the elections and that all candidates and parties accepted the people’s verdict without any hesitation.
GOVERNOR: Balochistan Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani has said that latest tissue culture technology will be helpful to produce plants, fruits and vegetables free of diseases.
Speaking to administration staff, teachers and students in the Balochistan University of Information Technology and Management Sciences, on the inauguration of a plant tissue culture laboratory on Friday, he said local farmers should be provided facility to benefit from the modern technology.
Mr Owais specially referred to banana and said this was an important fruit of Lasbela district of the province. It was also sent to all over the country, he added.
The governor said research laboratories would also be established in the Governor House and Balochistan University.
He said the government was paying attention to promote education sector.
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