FAISALABAD, July 28: The Election Commission of Pakistan has decided at the last moment to conduct local-body elections on the basis of joint electorate. The decision emerged through the recent amendments to the Punjab Local Government (Amended) Ordinance 2001.

Information gleaned by Dawn on Thursday revealed that minority leaders and some representatives of NGOs were demanding that the government should conduct elections on a joint electorate basis instead of separate electorates.

The previous local elections of 2001 were held on the basis of separate electorates and the government had planned to hold the coming polls on the same pattern. But recently, the section 148 of the PLGO has been amended and the election commission authorities formally informed about the same.

The amended section clearly reads that union council members, including nazims and naib nazims, shall be elected through direct elections based on adult franchize and on the basis of joint electorate.

In this scenario, the Muslim candidates for all seats of the union councils can get the votes of minorities and vice versa. The candidates are focusing on mustering support of both Muslims and minorities.

Two minority members, Robin Daniel and Sabir Sardar Khokhar, have filed their nomination papers for the seats of UC 158 nazim and naib nazim, respectively. They claimed that they had taken the decision to contest because most of the voters in their area belong to minority.

CANDIDATES: As many as 11,432 candidates are in the run for 3,757 seats of nazims, naib nazims and councillor for the 289 union councils in Faisalabad.