PESHAWAR: A day after the local government polls, the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) in its preliminary report points

out irregularities and mismanagement as the major issues reported by its 987 observers from 462 wards of 24 districts in the province.

Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, Fafen chairperson in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zaheer Khattak said that eight per cent increase was observed in the number of registered voters compared to the 2013 general election.

Read: Six people killed in clashes during Khyber Pakhtunkhwa LG polls

However, he said that due to mismanagement as many votes might have not been polled as the number of voters who turned up at polling stations.

He also said that the polling process was lengthy and slow.

Nearly 13 per cent of the polling stations were reported to have opened after the official polling time of 8:00am.

Maimoona Noor, member board of trustees Fafen, said that LG polls was a big exercise so like previous LG polls these should have been held phase-wise.

She said that women did come out to vote, but there was mismanagement.

Fafen chief executive Shahid Fayyaz shared details of the report and said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) did not give any guidelines to voters or even candidates.

The process of polling with a multi-coloured ballot paper was also confusing for many. Women’s participation was also ineffective as polling was marred by irregularities, mismanagement and even violence at many places.

Also read: Women ‘lacked knowledge’ of polling process

Referring to some observations recorded by the observers and included in the preliminary report about May 30 LG polls, Fafen stated that though the campaign period remained largely peaceful, the polling day was marked by administrative mismanagement, extremely slow processing of voters, procedural irregularities and several reports of violence and bar on women.

Despite the massive scale and evolving legislative and regulatory framework, ECP managed to conduct the polls on the designated date.

The report says that many Fafen sees irregularities, major issues in LG polls of the issues observed through the electoral process were due to lack of clarity of the new local government system among the stakeholders involved in the conduct of elections – voters, candidates, election/government staff and polling staff. Equally critical was the legislative areas with respect to the rights and entitlement of the voters and responding mandate of the ECP to protect them.

Fafen’s initial findings also showed that political parties and candidates were freely breaching the electoral law that bars all sorts of canvassing within 200 metres radius of the polling stations.

Campaigning of candidates went on freely at the party camps set up close to the polling stations with no action reported from any to curb these activities.

The report says that 13 per cent of the polling stations started polling late and polling was delayed in 14 of the 24 districts. The slow process also prolonged voting beyond polling hours and polling continued after 8:00pm in places like Abbottabad and Battagram.

It says 81 incidents of violence were reported from 19 districts. Incident of systematic or traditional barriers to women voting were reported from at least one polling station in 80 of 462 wards.

In its recommendations, Fafen says that the existing legal and administrative framework, as proposed by the provinces for the conduct of local government elections, is inadequate to meet the internationally accepted and constitutionally endorsed standards of electoral freedom, fairness, neutrality and transparency.

Fafen proposes a federal legislation to define the role of ECP to conduct consistent, free and fair local government elections and to protect the rights and entitlements of voters as well as candidates as granted in the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2015

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