Nearly 25 million voters in both the provinces will elect their municipal representatives in three phases. According to the schedule, polling for the 2nd phase will be held on 19th of November and for third phase on December 5. Officials said required election material, including ballot boxes and ballot papers, has been transported to the officials concerned in Sindh and Punjab. Personnel of army and Rangers have been deployed called in by the civil administration to maintain law and order in sensitive districts.
In Punjab, more than 4000 candidates have filed their nomination papers for slots of Chairman and Vice Chairman of union councils, with 19,000 aspirants for seats of General Councilors. In Sindh, there are nearly 10,000 candidates in the fray for municipal seats. The contesting candidates are making last efforts to garner the public support.
The districts of Punjab where polling will be held tomorrow are: Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujrat, Chakwal, Bhakkar, Nankana Sahib, Kasur, Pakpattan, Okara, Lodhran, Vehari and Bahawalnagar.Polling in Sindh will be held in Sukkur, Khairpur, Ghotki, Larkana, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Kashmore and Qamber districts. The polling will begin at 7.30 am tomorrow and will continue till 5.30 pm. Once again the opposition has demanded the deployment of the army as a guarantor to keep the polls free of mass rigging and violence. In all likelihood, the government will give in to the demand to ensure that the process goes through smoothly, but as usual there will be questions asked about the ability of the civilian authorities to manage polling themselves. Neither the ruling PML-N in Punjab nor the PPP in Sindh wanted the polls to go ahead, despite having agreed to the original constitutional amendments. The result has been a severely weathered down local bodies election in which a number of seats have been designated through selection, not election. There has been criticism over the decision not to have directly elected representation for minorities, women, youth and labour but we can leave that issue aside for now as the LB elections experiment goes ahead for the first time under a democratic set up. It is hoped that independent candidates and small parties will be able to carve up some space for themselves in elections where manifestos talk more than money. This may just be a hope rather than reality.
pk.shafaqna.com
