PESHAWAR: An electoral alliance consisting of ANP, JUI-F and PPP has demanded the holding of the upcoming local body elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under the supervision of judiciary to ensure transparency.

The three parties have joined forces to contest the May 30 local government elections in the province.

The PTI, JI and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad – partners of the ruling coalition in the province – are also planning to form alliance for the local body polls.

Speaking at a news conference at the ANP central headquarters on Wednesday, alliance president Mian Iftikhar Hussain asked the Election Commission of Pakistan to take notice of pre-poll rigging and ban postings and transfers of officials until elections.

He claimed that the government had begun posting and transfer of senior officers before elections.

Asks ECP to check rigging, ban posting, transfer of officials before elections

Hussain said judiciary should supervise polls to ensure transparency.

He claimed that the government was distributing funds for development schemes through unelected people besides using other tactics to influence the electoral process.

The ANP leader said the coalition government in the province was reluctant to conduct polls because of its poor performance. He said the government had failed to spend funds allocated in the annual development programme.

Hussain said 70 per cent of the current ADP would lapse and that the government was distributing funds for development schemes through unelected people.

The three-party alliance discussed strategy for polls in Peshawar, Swabi, Mardan, Nowshera and Charsadda districts.

The alliance will contest polls under one symbol and make seat adjustment with independent candidates.

The government had announced that elections would be conducted on non-party basis at village and neighbourhood levels and on party basis at tehsil and district levels.

The opposition parties have reservations about the holding of polls on non-party basis.

Hussain, who is also the ANP central general secretary, said the PTI was the only party, which supported election on non-party basis, which, he believed, was against the spirit of democratic norms and values.

He said Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had accommodated almost all MPAs of the ruling parties in his cabinet.

The ANP leader asked the ECP to stop members of the cabinet including parliamentary secretaries and special assistants to the chief minister from running election campaign.

He said the three-party alliance had serious reservations about delimitations in the province as well as the holding of polls on non-party basis and that it had already challenged it in the Peshawar High Court.

Hussain said the petition had been pending with the court for one year as lawyers for the government didn’t appear before it.

He said the government was not interested in holding local body polls in the province and that the Supreme Court had forced the government to conduct polls.

The ANP leader said despite the Supreme Court instructions, the provincial government was using different tactics to delay the local body elections.

He said the government’s lawyers didn’t appear before the court deliberately to delay the electoral process.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2015

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