APC rejects PPP’s proposal for LG polls in phases

Karachi
Except for a note of dissent by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), all political groups present at a multi-party conference convened by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) resolved that the upcoming local government elections be held in a single phase.
The PPP recommended a three-phase approach to the local government election but this idea was rejected by all parties.
Representatives of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan Muslim League-Q refrained from participating in the conference.
The participants included Muzaffar Hussain Shah, former chief and law minister and MPA of Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, Younus Khan Buneri of the Awami National Party, Ayaz Latif Palejo of the Qaumi Awami Tehreek, Mohammed Hussain Mehanti of Jamat-e-Islami, Mohammed Aslam Ghori of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah of the Sindh United Party, MPA Haji Shafi Jamote of PML-N and Ali Zaidi of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
The parties agreed to form an Election Monitoring Committee at provincial, taluka and tehsil levels, for which parties would nominate their representatives to become members.
It was decided that the committee would release a comprehensive report after the conclusion of the election.
However, there were diverging views of various parties whether the army should be called in to supervise the election or not amid apprehensions of rigging and violence.
Najmi Alam, the president of PPP Karachi, was of the view that to ensure the progress of the good politics, the political stakeholders should focus on conducting the election with civilian staff. He said involvement of law-enforcement agencies in elections and politics decisions would have far-reaching effects.
However, his decision was turned down by the participants of the meeting.
In its resolution, the parties maintained that in the larger interest of the people of Sindh, the participants of the conference would adhere to the code of conduct agreed upon in the meeting.
It was said that no political or religious party should attempt to disrupt or disturb the election campaign of candidates supported by their rivals. The parties agreed that the candidates too would desist from using indecent, uncivilised and provocative language in any form.
The stakeholders also agreed that for fair, free and impartial local government elections, the judiciary should manage the electoral process instead of the bureaucracy, on whose affiliation several parties had doubts.
The meeting rejected the notion of holding elections on ethnic divide. They agreed that the local government election should be held on propotional representation.
Muhammad Ismail Rahu, PMl-N’s general-secretary in Sindh, presided over the meeting.