PESHAWAR, March 2: The introduction of proportional representation for filling women and technocrats’ reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies has blocked the way of independent candidates to contest these seats.

Political and legal analysts believed that the say of political parties has been enhanced in the scheduled October elections.

Now anyone aspiring to win seats of these categories will have to join a political party first and even then there is no guarantee he would be included in the list of candidates, a political activist maintained.

He pointed out a contradiction of sorts in the government approach. While the local government polls were held on non-party basis because the government thought that most political parties were corrupt, the same parties are being given so much importance in the election for reserved seats.

Through the Conduct of General Elections Order, 2002, promulgated by the president for holding elections, the government has introduced proportional representation system for filling 60 seats reserved for women and 25 for technocrats.

Under section 5(4)(d) of the presidential order, the members on reserved seats would be elected simultaneously through proportional representation system of open political parties’ lists of candidates on the basis of total votes secured by the candidates of each political party contesting elections to the general seats.

Similarly, under section (2) (d), reserved seats in provincial assemblies would be filled through the same procedure.

“The demand for reserving seats for women was aimed at bringing females in the mainstream of political process, but the present system will serve no purpose,” noted a women’s rights activist.

She added that they were even opposed to the previous indirect system of elections for filling women’s reserved seats as enshrined in the 1973 Constitution, which lapsed later on. “Only direct elections will serve the purpose of reserving seats for females,” she added.

Another activist pointed out that political parties would only place names of its diehard leaders on their lists, and went on to question what room was left for the independents.

In the present situation, those wanting to run for the reserved seats are wholly dependent on political parties, he added.