PESHAWAR: Stepping back from its demand the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led coalition government has now decided to ask the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for holding the local government (LG) elections in the province without using biometric system.

“A summary will be moved soon to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak so that the ECP may be contacted for holding the elections without biometric system,” provincial Senior Minister Inyatullah Khan told Dawn. Answering a question, he said: “There has been a complete consensus between the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Jamaat-i-Islami over the conduct of the local bodies’ election without employing the biometric verification system.”

The PTI-led coalition government in the province has long been demanding the LG elections through biometric electronic thumb verification machines with a view to ensuring transparency and putting an end to the allegations of rigging afterwards. However, both the parties have given up their earlier stance in order to ensure that more delay is not caused in the LG election.

Mr Inayatullah, who also holds the portfolio of the Local Government and Rural Development Department, said that the provincial government had been demanding from the day one to use the biometric system for the verification of voters in the LG election, but the ECP was not ready to conduct it at a short notice.

LG minister says summary to CM soon to contact ECP for holding polls

He said that ECP was of the view that it could be able to hold the elections in November 2015 by using biometric system.

“We are not in favour of more delay in the elections and have decided to withdraw our demand of using biometric system,” he said.

Asked about PTI chief Imran Khan’s stand on the issue, Mr Inayatullah said that he (Imran) was also of the opinion that further delay in the elections would not augur well for the province.

“A summary will be moved soon to the chief minister so that the ECP may be contacted for holding the elections,” he said.

The ECP, in its recent meeting, said that it needed Rs2.5 billion to purchase biometric machines and subsequently pave the way for LG elections by Nov 2015.

Sources said that the local government department had already conducted the delimitation of local councils in the province under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013. They said that the entire province had been divided into 3,501village and neighbourhood councils.

The provincial government and ECP had also conducted mock polling with the support of Nadra in two local councils to check the applicability of voters’ verification through biometric system.

Some minor flaws had been observed during the mock polling as in certain cases the biometric machine didn’t pick the thumb impression of the voters.

Mostly the labourers’ fingers were found flat in the mock elections, the sources said, adding that the machines couldn’t verify such fingers. The machine was also unable to verify the fingerprints of women with henna on their hands, they claimed.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2014