Pressure tactics employed to ensure Wahab’s unopposed victory in LG by-polls, alleges Naeem

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) employed unfair means and pre-poll rigging with the support of the interim setup and Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to get Murtaza Wahab elected unopposed as a union committee chairman from Ibrahim Hyderi area of Karachi.

Karachi Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman made this allegation on Saturday as he reacted to Wahab’s victory in the local government by-elections.

He said the ECP and the caretaker government were hands in gloves with the PPP against democratic norms and values.

Declaring the caretaker government as an extended version of the previous regime, he said the PPP was not able to go that far in fascism without the support from the interim government.

He alleged that the PPP’s men made the proposer and seconder of the JI’s candidate in the UC withdraw their support under duress. He added that the PPP had once again used feudalism to defeat Karachi and Karachiites.

He maintained that the PPP had hijacked the electoral process since long ago and the situation was still the same as all the candidates contesting UC elections against Wahab had been expelled from the race through fascist tactics.

Rehman maintained that all rules and laws had been moulded to facilitate Wahab’s victory. He highlighted that as per the rules, any chairman or vice chairman, or mayor or deputy mayor would not take part in electioneering.

Ironically, he added, the mayor was running his election campaign in three union committees. He said the JI had challenged the permission granted to Wahab in the ECP and later the election tribunal but all went in vain so the JI challenged those unconstitutional steps in the Sindh High Court.

The JI leader announced that the party would challenge the unopposed election of Wahab in a court of law.

He added that the JI had always challenged the PPP’s fascism and the ECP’s support for the PPP, and would continue to do so in the future as well.

On Friday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and JI candidates for local government by-polls challenged in the Sindh High Court the acceptance of nomination papers filed by Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab to contest by-polls for the slot of chairman of the union committees of Ibrahim Hyderi and Mauripur’s town municipal corporations.

Petitioners Mohammad Sabir Khan Abbasi and Mohammad Hussnain and others submitted that they were candidates for the office of UC-8 Ibrahim Hyderi and UC-3 Mauripur chairmen where Pakistan Peoples Party candidate and Mayor Murtaza Wahab had also filed his nomination papers.

They said Wahab is a voter registered in Union Committee, Gizri, Saddar Town, District South, and he had also submitted his nomination papers for contesting elections in that union committee.

They further submitted that Wahab is a resident of neither these UCs nor of Saddar Town and in fact he is a voter registered in Mohallah Bagh Colony, Gizri.

The petitioners said that in view of his ineligibility for contesting the by-elections being not a voter of the said UCs, they had filed objections before the returning officer and the appellate tribunal; however, the latter dismissed their objections.

They further submitted that the returning officer and the appellate tribunal did not apply their judicial mind and even could not differentiate between the municipal and town municipal corporation, union committee and the union committee and union council, while disposing of the appeals against the acceptance of Wahab’s nomination papers.

They said the election tribunal did not consider the qualification criteria for election of the candidate to the office of the union committee’s chairman, which says that a person shall not be qualified to be elected or chosen as member of the council unless he is enrolled as a voter in the electoral rolls of the concerned council or ward.

The Supreme Court, while examining the issue, had categorically said that the very purpose of establishing the local government system is to ensure representation of the people in the governance at the grassroots level.

They submitted that superior courts have categorically decided that the person contesting the election directly should be a voter of the concerned council as per Section 35© of the local government law.

They said the purpose of the direct election is as simple as that the person contesting the election should be amongst the residents of the area, whereas the respondent who has shown his address in Gizri but is contesting election for chairman of union committees of Ibrahim Hyderi, and Mauripur cannot be said to be a person amongst the residents of the locality.