KARACHI, Aug 17: The process of local government elections 2005 will be completed in three phases. The first phase of elections would be completed on Thursday when voters will exercise their right of franchise in 54 districts of the country to elect various categories of members of union councils, including UC nazims and naib nazims.

In the second phase of elections, polling will be held on Aug 25 in the remaining 56 districts of the country. It would mark the end of the process of direct elections in the country. In the third-and-indirect phase of elections, zila, taluka, tehsil or town nazims would be elected by the nominated members.

This phase would begin on Sept 3 and conclude on Sept 29 with the election of above categories of nazims by the elected members. The nomination papers for the phase would be issued from Sept 3 The polling for indirect elections will be held on Sept 29 for the election of Zila Nazim of a district/city district, a tehsil/taluka nazim, a town nazim for each tehsil/taluka or town, as the case may be, and for members of zila council and each tehsil/taluka council or town council for the seats reserved for women, peasants/workers and minorities.

The electoral ward for the election of a Zila Nazim, shall be district, for a taluka nazim, a taluka, for a town nazim, a town. The electoral ward for the election of a naib zila nazim, naib taluka nazim and naib town nazim shall be the respective councils.

The voting procedure for the union council being multi-member ward is distinctive from the general elections.

In the general elections, a voter is provided only one ballot paper while in the local government elections under devolution plan a voter will be issued six ballot papers of different colours, each identifying the category of the member: (white for Muslims, pink for Muslim women, light green for peasants and workers, yellow for peasants/workers women, light blue for nazim and naib nazim and khaki for minority communities.