ECP announces final list for mayor polls

Karachi

The Election Commission Pakistan announced on Monday the final list of the candidates for Karachi’s mayor and deputy mayor slot for the elections on August 24.

There are three candidates finalised for the mayor’s slot – Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Waseem Akhtar and Arshad Hasan and Pakistan People’s Party’s Karamullah Waqsi.

For the deputy mayor’s seats, three names are in the final list – MQM’s Arshad Vohra and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Amanullah Afridi and Naveed Anjum, who had contested on a PML-N ticket but did not mention his party affiliation in the nomination form.

An ECP official said the parties would arrive on August 16 for their tickets and would be awarded symbols.

This time, elections are being held through secret balloting. They are likely to be held at the old KMC building on MA Jinnah Road. Replying to a question, the official said he could not confirm as to whether Waseem Akhtar, who was in jail, would come to cast his vote or not as it was a court matter.

Arshad Vohra told The News that Akhtar had the right to cast his vote as per the law, he was an accused person and not convicted.

PPP accuses ECP

Pakistan People’s Party central leader Senator Taj Haider alleged on Monday that the Election Commission of Pakistan was conspiring to have the candidate nominated by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement for the Hyderabad mayor’s slot elected uncontested.

A statement issued by the PPP’s Sindh media cell quoted the senior party leader as saying that the returning officer deputed by the election commission for the mayoral election in Hyderabad had unduly raised the objection that he (Taj Haider) had no authority to sign the tickets issued by the party for its contesting candidates.

Haider said he had taken up the issue with Sindh election commissioner Tanveer Zaki. “I have informed him that there was no reason to cause confusion on the issue by stating that I had no authority to sign the tickets issued by the party,” he added. “However, it has not been done so yet.”

He said that such an undue objection had been raised against his signing authority on behalf of the PPP after even though he had signed 18,500 tickets of the party to the contesting candidates of the PPP while acting in the capacity of general secretary of the Pakistan People’s Party (Parliamentarians).