As dust kicked up by AJK elections, Sialkot by-poll settles: Another electoral contest of limited scale coming up

ISLAMABAD: As the dust kicked up by the Azad Jammu & Kashmir elections and the Sialkot by-poll settles, another electoral contest is coming up on September 12 – this time for the Cantonment Boards (CBs) in all the provinces of Pakistan.

All the political parties are geared up to contest the local government polls vigorously. Specifically, those federal and provincial legislators who have CBs in their constituencies are quite active as they consider this contest, though on a smaller scale, a warming-up exercise in the run up to the next general elections.

The political parties have issued tickets to their candidates after consultation with the respective federal and provincial lawmakers of the areas. Since the CB wards do not have a very large number of voters, canvassing by the contestants is relatively easy as it can be effectively done by a door-to-door campaign.

In Punjab, the main fight is likely to take place between the ticket holders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Official data shared by an official with The News showed that more than 2,171,465 voters – 1,142,530 males and 1,028,935 females – are eligible use their right of franchise in the CBs polls.

There are a total of 219 wards which means that as many councillors will be directly elected. Their number will swell after the indirect election of reserved seats for women, technocrats, labourers, peasants and other special groups.

The main concentration of the CBs is in the politically crucial Punjab, which has 20 of them. There are 12 CBs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), eight in Sindh and four in Balochistan. In Punjab, Rawalpindi, Chaklala, Wah, Taxila, Kamra, Sanjwal, the Murree Hills, Lahore Walton, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Attock, Jhelum, Kharian, Mangla, Multan, Sargodha, Bahawalpur, Shorkot, and Okara have CBs.

KP’s CBs are located in Peshawar, Nowshera, Kohat, Mardan, Risalpur, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Cherat, Swat, Abbottabad, Murree Galis (Kalabagh) and Havelian. Sindh has CBs in Clifton, Faisal (Karachi), Malir, Karachi (Saddar), Korangi Creek, Manora, Hyderabad and Pano Aqil while Balochistan’s CBs are located in Quetta, Zhob and Loralai.

The polls are being organized by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which has, through its various actions since Sikandar Sultan Raja took over as the chief election commissioner (CEC), established itself as an independent and impartial forum that works without any fear or favour. The final list of contesting candidates with allotted symbols was displayed on August 13 after going through different processes of the election schedule, unveiled by the ECP.

Following the issuance of the poll schedule, the ECP barred all the executive authorities at the federal and provincial levels from announcing and launching any development package or using state resources, aimed at influencing the elections in favour of a particular candidate, in the CB elections.

The ECP also banned transfers and postings of officials appointed by the electoral body to hold the local polls in CBs till the announcement of the election results. In light of Section 219(4) of the Elections Act, 2017, the ECP ordered the delimitation of wards for the conduct of local elections in the CBs.

An ECP official said that so far, the process of holding the polls in the CBs was going smoothly and in a hassle-free manner. He said the ECP would remain watchful as before so that the elections are fair, free and transparent.