LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is looking for a Lahore mayor candidate that has “name recognition” among people so that the party does not need to introduce him/her in the upcoming local government election.

“The party wants that the mayor candidate should be decided as early as possible so that the candidate could campaign across the metropolitan district (for the direct election) to get due share of votes from around seven million voters in Lahore alone,” disclosed PTI Punjab President Shafqat Mahmood while speaking to media persons at a meeting organised by newly-appointed PTI Punjab information secretary Musarrat Jamshed Cheema at a local hotel on Saturday.

“Federal Energy Minister Hammad Azhar, Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid and Punjab Industries Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal may be the potential candidates for Lahore mayor,” Mr Mahmood said and added in the same breath that the party would need to talk to the candidates that how they would be able to contest the all-important Lahore mayor election.

Rejecting the speculations that the electoral activity would require Rs1 billion worth of funding, Mr Mahmood said he did not think so because the party would also be simultaneously contesting around 503 union council elections so the message of party candidate for the mayor would reach masses loud and clear.

He said the party would also partially fund the candidate and added that fund-raising was an integral part of elections in established democracies. “We need to move forward and reach a stage, where only filthy rich should not be able to contest the elections,” he opined.

Asked whether former senior minister Abdul Aleem Khan can also be considered for the mayor slot, Mr Mahmood said Mr Khan had never expressed his wish to contest this election.

To a question, Mr Mahmood said the Punjab government is completely ready to hold LG polls and waiting for the final dates to be given by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

“The Punjab Local Government Act 2021 has reached Punjab Assembly and the opposition can express its reservations as a part of the democratic process. Genuine reservations will be accepted and others be ignored,” he said.

Rebuffing the opposition’s claims that the PTI itself did not want to hold the LG elections, the PTI Punjab president said Prime Minister Imran Khan had time and again asked party leaders and provincial chief ministers to hold polls.

Stating that the prime minister wanted a system of direct elections, he said the LG polls would be interesting and historic in the sense that for the first time direct elections would be held to elect mayors in 11 metropolitan corporations [major cities] and chairmen in districts. “In Lahore, some six to seven million people will be directly voting to elect a mayor,” he said.

About the possibility of using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Mr Mahmood said the previous elections’ analysis suggested that most rigging was either done on the polling day or in-between polling station to transportation and declaration of results.

“The EVMs will eliminate the age-old rigging practice in the country,” he asserted. He said the government would surely fund to procure the EVMs.“In the 2013 general elections, ballots were found from drains in the constituency of PML-N’s Khwaja Saad Rafique,” he said and added that the PML-N and PPP always wanted to win elections through rigging.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2022