Minister handling PML-N contest in Islamabad local polls

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry will be largely responsible for the results, heartening or demoralising, of Monday’s local council elections for his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) as he has been the man in-charge, calling the shots for his party in this electoral exercise.
His voice and weight in awarding the tickets to the PML-N candidates for the chairmen and vice chairmen of the fifty Union Councils (UCs) and councillors was dominant. He will be accountable to the top party leadership for the outcome.
Tariq Fazal played a key role in picking up nominees for UCs falling in NA-49, which he represents in the National Assembly, in particular, and other UCs in the NA-48 in general.
He was inducted as minister in the federal capital just a week before Monday’s polling with these elections in view. He has been given the portfolio of the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD).
Tariq Fazal figured among a handful of prominent PML-N leaders including ministers, who had continuously spoken for the government as well as the party when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan had lambasted them during the sit-in and later on daily basis. Other non-ministers included Danyal Aziz, Talal Chaudhry and Maiza Hameed, who are yet to make to the federal cabinet.
He has a good record of consecutively winning the last two general elections of NA-49 in 2013 and 2008, routing his rivals with a considerable margin. However, he had shown a poor performance in the 2002 polls when he had faced defeat.
In 2013, Tariq Fazal had secured 94,106 votes as against 57,383 ballots of PTI representative Ilyas Mehrban and 44,984 votes of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) candidate Mustafa Khokhar. In 2008, he had won with a narrow margin. He had bagged 45,482 votes compared to 44,726 ballots of PPP’s Nayyar Bokhari and 34,546 votes of PML-Q’s Mustafa Khokhar.
Obviously, Tariq Fazal profile and worth will go up in the PML-N if he is able to win the ICT elections but will be confronted with humiliation should he lose the most important electoral exercise.
The real challenge to Tariq Fazal and the PML-N will come in the election of the mayor of the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC), a body that would be introduced in the capital for the first time since the creation of this key city.
He recently said that the PML-N will win at least 29 UCs of the rural areas of the ICT, which means he is confident of getting the slot of the IMC mayor.
The biggest challenge to the PML-N in the ICT elections has been thrown by the PTI, which is expected to show a better performance in the urban areas unlike its faring in the two phases in Punjab and Sindh.
The PTI had twice won NA-48, once in the 2013 parliamentary polls and later in the by-election as the seat had been vacated by its winner, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi. The seat was later clinched by PTI leader Asad Umar. In both cases, the two candidates did not belong to Islamabad. One was from Multan and the other from Karachi. This demonstrated that the PTI had a large number of votes in this constituency and the personality of the candidates did not matter.
Apart from the PML-N and PTI cardholders, a large number of independents are also in the run in the ICT. The PPP has no significant presence as far as the number of contestants is concerned.
Former Deputy Speaker Haji Nawaz Khokhar, who has beena major player in the rural Islamabad, is also on the sidelines, and so his son, Mustafa Khokhar.
A major highlight of the ICT polls is that while the voters of the rural region personally know the backgrounds of the candidates belonging to different parties, the electorates in the urban Islamabad are hardly aware of the credentials of the competitors, most of which being novices in the electoral arena.
However, all sides have done a comprehensive campaigning chiefly through publicity material and SMSs. Some voters are surprised how the candidates came to know about their mobile phone numbers where messages had been sent by them, seeking support.
At last, the ICT is going to have the lowest tiers of elected bodies. It was always denied this by successive governments. The new system – IMC mayor and Capital Development or CDA – will take time to settle down as the civic body had been performing all the functions since the creation of the federal capital in Islamabad.
A total of 680,612 voters, registered till September 22, 2015, will exercise their right in the urban and rural areas of ICT. Of them, 367,960 are males and 312,652 females. There is an apprehension that many voters, living in the city areas but hailing from other cities, might have left Islamabad for their homes as the polling day comes after two weekly holidays.