PESHAWAR, Sept 15: The upcoming National Assembly elections in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas are going to be held on non-party basis and candidates there can not apply for any party ticket, the NWFP minister for law and parliamentary affairs, Athar Minallah, told a news briefing here on Saturday.
“The Political Parties Act has not been extended to Fata and therefore, political parties can neither operate there nor can they issue tickets to tribal candidates”, he said.
The minister said that elections in the tribal region would be held on the principle of adult franchise and candidates for both, the national assembly and the Senate, would be elected directly.
He said that it was the prerogative of the Election Commission to allot symbols to the candidates. But, he said, the allotment of any symbol to the candidates in the tribal areas would not mean that they represented any political party.
Mr Minallah warned that the action would be taken against Nazimeen who were found interfering in the elections. He acknowledged that there were complaints against Nazimeen in Nowshera, Charsadda, Dera Ismail Khan and Kohistan.
He said that the two of them were summoned to the Local Government Commission and directed not to get themselves involved in the elections, while the two others had been asked to appear on Sept 18.
He said that there was a code of conduct for the Nazimeen under which they could not announce any developmental scheme and canvassing for any candidate. He said that only those schemes could be announced that had already been approved by the district council.
The minister said that the delimitation process in the tribal areas had almost been completed and the EC had been requested to announce a schedule of local bodies election in Fata. He hoped that the EC would soon announce the local bodies elections schedule.
Chief of Fata Section Tariq Hayat on this occasion informed that each union council in the areas would consist of 11 members including one lady councillor. Each Tehsil development administration, he said, would consist of the Naib Nazimeen of union councils.
The agency council, he said, would be headed by an agency Nazim to be directly elected. The minimum education qualification for agency Nazim would be matric, he added.
The agency council, he said, would comprise Nazimeen of union councils, four women representatives and one member from the minority community.
He said that there would be a total of 295 union councils including 47 in Khyber Agency, 28 in Mohmand, 46 in Bajaur, 45 in Kurram, 24 in Orakzai, 40 each in South and North Waziristan, 3 in Frontier Regions (FR) Dera Ismail Khan, 3 in FR Tank, 4 in FR Peshawar, 8 in FR Kohat, 1 in FR Lakki and 4 in FR Bannu.
NAPP: The secretary-general of the National Awami Party Pakistan, Latif Afridi, has claimed that there is no ban on political parties to field candidates in Federally Administered Tribal Areas for the upcoming general elections.
In a statement here on Sunday, he belied a statement by provincial minister Athar Minallah that the candidates could not use political platforms in the Fata. The minister, he said, was unaware that the Political Parties Act, 1962, was quashed by Gen Pervez Musharraf.
Mr Afridi said there was nothing like a Political Parties Act in the country nowadays. The Political Party Order, 2002, was a Presidential order which dealt with all parts of the country irrespective of their administrative status, he added.
HE SAID: “There is no ban on political parties in Fata. Nor any person can be stopped from contesting the elections on party ticket.” Such a ban would be nothing more than a joke with the tribal people who had suffered for long 55 years under an outworn system, the NAPP leader added.
All candidates, he said, who were running elections on the party tickets were not making an illegal thing. The minister, he said, should desist from interfering in Fata affairs.