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Thursday March 28, 2024

Majority of KP district, tehsil nazims are novices at politics

PESHAWAR: Most of the newly elected district and town/tehsil nazims in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are young and newcomers in the mainstream politics.Except for a few elected as district, tehsil and town nazims, the majority are educated youth, who don’t belong to the few families that are active in politics. Many top

By Javed Aziz Khan
August 31, 2015
PESHAWAR: Most of the newly elected district and town/tehsil nazims in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are young and newcomers in the mainstream politics.
Except for a few elected as district, tehsil and town nazims, the majority are educated youth, who don’t belong to the few families that are active in politics.
Many top political families avoided fielding their sons fearing that a defeat at the union council level might harm their political future.
Some of the traditional politicians even failed to win their seats in district or town councils from their respective union councils. This provided an opportunity to the commoners and people having no political background to represent their people in the local governments.
New faces were elected from the Peshawar valley, southern districts of the province, Hazara and Malakand divisions.
The young district nazim of Peshawar, Arbab Asim Khan, is new in politics. He belongs to Bahadur Killay, the village of great Pashto poet Rahman Baba, and had joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf a few years back.
Arbab Asim had applied for the PTI ticket for contesting for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seat from PK-6 but failed to get it. In fact, he got the PTI ticket for the district council after hectic efforts as the local party leadership was favouring another candidate.
The new district nazim was robbed of cash and documents by pickpockets on the very first day of his new job soon after his oath-taking.
There were a large number of dignitaries attending the event and the incident was embarrassing for the cops on duty.
Zahid Nadeem was elected nazim and Kamran Bangash naib nazim of Town-1 Peshawar. Both are new to politics and have been elected for the first time. Similarly, the nazims and their deputies elected in Town-2 and Town-3 are all new in politics and won their seats on the PTI ticket.
The nazim of town-4 Haroon Sifat is a young man from Badaber village. He was elected on the ticket of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). His father contested general election in 2013 for an assembly seat, but lost to a PTI candidate.
The deputy nazim of Town-4 Arbab Kamal is originally from Landi Arbab but he was elected town councillor from Sheikhan village. He has been elected for the first time on the ticket of JUI-F.
The district nazim of Nowshera, Liaqat Khattak is the brother of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak. The PTI dominated the local government polls in Nowshera.
Pervez Khattak has a number of his family members in power now, including his son-in-law and close female relatives.
Mustafa Kundi, elected as district nazim Tank is the brother of PTI MNA from the area, Dawar Kundi.
PTI miserably failed to win the top slot in Kohat due to rift between the local elected representatives and party leaders. A new face, Niaz Mohammad, from JUI-F was elected the nazim of Kohat while a PML-N nominee, Rasheed Khan, managed to win the office of deputy nazim.
The PTI nominee Umar Daraz won the post of district nazim of Karak. His brother Gul Sahib Khan was elected the youngest MPA from KP in the 2013 general election. However, he was expelled by the PTI last week for violating the party discipline.
The JUI-F candidate won in Hangu district. The party is strong in southern districts of the province.
The newly elected district nazims, both from the ANP, of Swabi and Mardan have won elections previously. The Swabi district nazim Amir Rahman is a former MPA while Himayatullah Mayar remained nazim of Mardan district in the past.
The JI candidates, who won the top slots in Upper Dir, Chitral, Buner and Lower Dir, are all new faces and have been elected for the first time.
In Hazara, those elected on the ticket of PML-N or PTI are mostly new faces and have contested polls for the first time.