PESHAWAR: The political parties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have allotted tickets to their candidates against one of the three general councillor seats in each village and neighbourhood councils to avoid confusion and minimise the possibility of votes’ rejection in the upcoming local government elections.

By allotting one ticket instead of three in each village and neighbourhood council, the political parties are eyeing the slot of chairman, who will also be a member of tehsil council by virtue of office.

According to the Local Government Act, 2013, each council of village and neighbourhood consists of seven seats including three general seats and one seat each for women, peasant/worker, youth and minority.

As per law, of the three winning candidates on the general seats, the one, who has maximum votes, will be declared chairman of the relevant village and neighbourhood council (VCNC), while the remaining two successful candidates will be just councillors.

The Election Commission of Pakistan is ready to conduct local bodies’ elections in 17 districts of the province on December19.

Allot tickets to their candidates against one of three general councillor seats to avoid votes’ rejection

The ECP had announced to conduct the elections at village and neighbourhood council level on non-party basis, while at tehsil level on party basis, as per the KP LG Act, 2013.

However, Peshawar High Court directed ECP to hold local bodies’ elections at both the tiers on party basis.

“Since the VCNC chairman would also be a member of tehsil council, so the party has focused on getting maximum slots of the chairman to have sufficient representation in the tehsil council and VCNC,” Mohammad Zahid, a local leader of Awami National Party, told Dawn.

He said that a ballot paper would carry three symbols of the same party if a political party awarded tickets to three candidates on the three general seats.

In such a scenario, he said, the party workers would poll votes to all three candidates of the party instead of one, while a voter could poll vote for one general seat only.

“The votes would go wasted if the electorates poll votes to more than one candidates on general seats,” he said, adding that majority of the voters were not properly educated about how to cost votes, especially in the rural areas.

Mr Zahid said that similarly, the party’s votes would be divided into three if a party allowed its workers to contest for all the three general seats.

He added that in such a situation the party might lose the slot of chairman of the VCNC and resultantly the membership of the respective tehsil council.

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl provincial information secretary Haji Jalil Jan told this scribe that if three tickets were awarded to party workers then they would not only be in competition with the candidates of other political parties but also with their own party’s candidates.

He said that election campaign would also be difficult for the political parties as the leadership would be puzzled during the drive to ask the voters to cast vote for a candidate of the party out the three.

Jamaat-i-Islami provincial secretary information Mohammad Iqbal said that there were high possibilities of wasting of votes if the political parties contested poll for all the three general seats in a VCNC.

A senior leader of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf told Dawn that the party allotted one ticket to a single candidate in majority of the councils.

While in some areas where more than one workers of a party were aspirants and the party was unable to decide among them, the party asked them to contest elections as independent candidates, he added.

He said that if the party awarded ticket to two or three candidates then they would be losers as the voters would poll votes to all of them instead of one that would be rejected.

It is pertinent to mention here that in the first phase, elections would be held in 17 districts including Peshawar, Nowshera, Charsadda, Khyber, Mohmand, Mardan, Swabi, Bajaur, Haripur, Kohat, Karak, Hangu, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Tank and Malakand.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2021