PESHAWAR: In the absence of major opposition parties, the multi-party conference convened by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Tuesday decided to investigate the allegations of mismanagement and rigging in the May 30 local body elections through a judicial commission.

“The provincial government will soon contact the Peshawar High Court for the formation of a judicial commission to probe the alleged irregularities in the local body polls. Every decision of the commission will be acceptable to the government,” the chief minister told reporters after the multi-party conference here.

The conference chaired by the chief minister was attended mostly by ruling parties, including Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Jamaat-i-Islami and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan.

From among the opposition parties, only Qaumi Watan Party as well as Pakistan Muslim League–Quaid, which has no representation in the provincial assembly, attended the meeting.

CM says high court will be contacted to form judicial commission

Leaders of the tripartite alliance consisting of Awami National Party, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl and Pakistan People’s Party didn’t attend the meeting and said they would go ahead with today’s (Wednesday) shutter down strike across the province against the alleged rigging in the local body elections.

The government had invited the opposition parties to participate in the multi-party conference but they refused.

The chief minister said the conference also approved strict action against the ‘elements involved in irregularities, rigging and hooliganism’ during the May 30 polls and formed an administrative inquiry committee to identify those elements.

He said the inquiry committee would be headed by the provincial chief secretary.

“The committee will fix responsibility for rigging, irregularities and hooliganism no matter who the culpable persons are,” he said.

Khattak said all the parties, which participated in the multi-party conference, had the unanimous opinion that constitutionally and under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act 2013, the Election Commission of Pakistan was responsible for everything happened on May 30 (election day).

He said the conference also formed a panel to contact opposition parties and convince them to participate in another multi-party conference to be convened on the issue later on.

The chief minister said senior minister Inayatullah Khan headed the committee, which had senior minister Shahram Khan Tarakai, information minister Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani and elementary and secondary education minister Mohammad Atif Khan as members.

He reiterated the ruling coalition’s stand on the local government elections, saying they’re ready for re-polling if all political parties wanted so.

Khattak said the committee under the chief secretary would initiate disciplinary action against the culpable officials within a week as the government had already begun collecting evidence of mismanagement and rigging in the May 30 elections.

He denied the opposition’s allegation of the PTI involvement in election rigging, saying many candidates of the ruling party lost elections in the constituencies of several ministers, so how they could rig polls.

When asked about the call given by the opposition’s tripartite alliance for strike on Wednesday, the chief minister said it was the right of opposition parties to protest.

He, however, warned if protesters broke the law, then the police would handle them strictly according to the law.

About long delay in the announcement of official results of local body elections and the alleged changes in results by returning officers, Khattak said all polling staff would work under the ECP until the official poll results were declared, so he couldn’t say anything about it.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2015

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