PPP writes to CEC about ‘14 missing presiding officers’

PESHAWAR: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Central Information Secretary Faisal Karim Kundi on Monday asked the chief election commissioner (CEC) to probe as to why 14 presiding officers from Peshawar polling stations were still missing even one day after the local government election.

Talking to reporters here, he said the election concluded on Sunday but the presiding officers from 14 polling stations had not reached the returning officers even on Monday. Faisal Karim Kundi sent a letter to the CEC, asking him to take notice of the situation, saying why election results of the Peshawar’s mayor had not been compiled until now.

He demanded investigations into the unnecessary delay in announcing election results. The PPP had nominated Arbab Zarak Khan for the Peshawar mayor slot, where the nominees of the major political parties, including the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Rizwan Bangash, Jamiat Ulema Islam (F) and Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz’s Zubair Ali, Awami National Party (ANP) Sher Rehman, Jamaat-e-Islam (JI) Behrullah advocate were prominent among the contestants.

The delay in announcing official results created unrest among the top contenders, including the PPP as almost the supporters of the PTI, JUIF and ANP were celebrating their victories by projecting unofficial results from different polling stations.

According to unofficial results, the JUIF candidate, Zubair Ali, son of the former district nazim and JUI-F leader Ghulam Ali, was leading in the city mayor contest by obtaining over 62,000 votes.

The supporters of the major political parties claimed that they were still waiting for the remaining 27 polling stations. The PPP women parliamentarians including Senator Rubina Khalid and deputy parliamentary leader in KP Assembly Nighat Orakzai claimed that they had caught red-handed the presiding officer of a women polling station who they alleged was stamping ballot papers even before the elections. They alleged the staff on duty had unsealed the boxes.

The woman legislators said the government later arrested the presiding officer and her husband and promised to transfer the entire staff from that polling station. Rubina Khalid said that though the presiding offer concerned was arrested but the staff was not changed.

Political observers believed that the Peshawarites had rejected the PTI in the election and they could have easily defeated more ruling party nominees in these elections had they fielded joint candidates.

The observers said that the results of the election had proved the vote bank of all the political parties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and it was a test case for the ruling as well as opposition parties to draw a future line of action in the next phase of the local government elections slated for January and for the general elections.

Talking to the media, KP Minister for Culture and Labour Shaukat Yousafzai acknowledged the party’s weak performance in the election, saying the price hike had affected the PTI’s popularity and that was a reason the people did not vote for them.