ISLAMABAD: The idea of holding local government elections in phases in Sindh and Punjab appears to be gaining momentum with both the provincial governments seeking staggered polls for better management — a proposal that also suits the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

A senior ECP official told Dawn on Wednesday that the commission had received a recommendation from the National Assembly’s standing committee on parliamentary affairs for division-wise polls in the two provinces.

He said the Sindh government had already written a letter to the ECP calling for LG polls in the province in three phases, while the Punjab government also wanted staggered elections.

“Keeping in view the situation witnessed during the LG polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa we think that local elections in phases are better and we’ve decided to request the Election Commission in this respect,” Punjab Law and Local Bodies Minister Rana Sanaullah recently told reporters.

The ECP official said that although no official communication had yet been received from Punjab, the province had a declared position on the matter.

The proposal was discussed during a meeting of ECP Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad with local government secretaries of Sindh and Punjab. Election commissioners of the two provinces also attended the meeting.

The official said the meeting deliberated on ways to prevent mismanagement and violence during the LG elections in the two provinces and present to the ECP a proposal to hold the elections in three stages.

He disclosed that after approval of the proposal by the commission an appeal had been filed with the Supreme Court.

The ECP had earlier prepared a plan to hold the polls in the two provinces in phases, but the apex court had rejected it and directed the commission to conduct the elections on a single day (Sept 20).

He said the delimitation exercise in Sindh and Punjab would be completed by July 28 and after that a schedule for LG polls would be announced, most probably in the first week of next month. He said the provincial assemblies of Sindh and Punjab had adopted local government laws and the rules were being given final touches.

The ECP official said about 120 million ballot papers would be printed for Sindh and more than 300m for Punjab but the government-run printing presses did not have the capacity to print the papers within the stipulated period.

He said that phase-wise polls were the only practical solution otherwise the private printing presses would have to be involved in printing of ballot papers, which could make the entire process controversial.

Published in Dawn ,July 16th, 2015

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