The uncertainty about holding of local government elections in the country has prevailed for long. Successive governments home kept delaying the elections on different pretexts, on redefining the boundaries of the constituencies for instance, but finally home had to come up with their respective election schedules on the insistence of the Supreme Court.

In an encouraging development, the local government elections were held in Balochistan last month whereas Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government wants a month’s extension in the deadline of February 28. There are objections against delimitations in KPK but none of the opposition parties has challenged them in the court.

The situation in Punjab and Sindh is different, where the delimitations carried out by the respective governments have been declared illegal by the respective high courts. Major charges brought forward against this process relate to gerrymandering and excessive use of local government machinery to work out delimitations that favour the ruling parties. Interestingly, these decisions were announced by the two high courts on two consecutive days.

The Punjab government has accepted the court decision and decided not to challenge it whereas the Sindh government has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) and requested it to set aside the decision of the Sindh High Court (SHC).

In the opinion of Punjab Law Minister, Rana Sanaullah, there is a need to review whether delimitations based on the census of 1998 could work or there should be a new census. In the latter case, he thinks, local bodies elections could be delayed further for one to one-and-a-half years.

On the other hand, the Sindh government has been asked by the court to go ahead with elections on the basis of previous delimitations or form an independent commission to carry out delimitations in a non-controversial manner. Its appeal to set aside the decision was accepted by the SC but there was no immediate order and the date of January 27 was fixed for the next hearing.

The reaction to how the delimitations issue would affect the local government elections is varied.

PTI Punjab President Ejaz Chaudhry, who had filed one of the many petitions against delimitations in the province, doubts that the Punjab government will use this decision to delay elections. The fact they did not challenge the decision and are now talking about holding elections after census is a proof of this, he adds. The main objections raised by Chaudhry in his petition were that under the 18th amendment, delimitations were the responsibility of the Election Commission and not the bureaucracy, and that the current delimitations had been carried out non-judiciously by the civil bureaucracy.

The Lahore High Court (LHC) took cognizance of this fact and declared Section 10-A of the Punjab Local Government Act (PLGA) which states: "A court, officer or authority shall not review or correct any delimitation of a Union Council or ward after the notification of the election schedule." Chaudhry says his party has no objection even if the local government elections are carried out on the basis of delimitations of 2001. "It is better to have elections based on old delimitations than not having them at all," he says.

Salman Abid, founding member of Civil Society Forum on local governments, tells TNS that the delimitations in Punjab were done without following any set of rules or perimeters. A union council could have 500 voters or even 25,000 voters depending on what suits the ruling party. It is strange that the task was entrusted to DCOs who were directed to keep the political opponents in mind while defining constituencies.

Citing the example of Township, Faisal Town and Jauhar Town areas in Lahore which have been independent UCs in the past, he says, they were split and merged into each other to increase the weightage of voters of one political party in all the new UCs.

Taj Haider, Secretary General PPP Sindh, rejects speculations that the Sindh government wants to delay local government elections. The Sindh government, he says, has supported party-based elections from the start, got a balanced Sindh Local Government Act passed by the provincial assembly and carried out the delimitation process according to this law.

He says, there was 15 days’ time to receive objections against delimitations but no political party filed a complaint. "This means the process was acceptable to all." The Sindh High Court declared delimitations void and also disapproved of the panel system which was proposed under the election scheme. This halted the whole process and led to delay in holding of local general elections, he adds.

Taj shares it with TNS that he discussed the matter with Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and sought his advice on when to appeal against the high court decision. "We had two months time to appeal. We could wait for 59 days and file appeal on the 60th day if we had any intention to delay the elections," he adds.

Haider says the chief minister said if the government wanted to hold these elections it should approach the Supreme Court at the earliest. "That’s exactly what we did," he says adding that he also rejects the idea of holding population census, terming it a fraud as he has seen census entries being made on gun point.

Instead, he would prefer to rely on Nadra record which is reliable and immediately available.

Haider recalls how Nadra provided him the figure of 21,347,871 on Karachi’s population -- "I am sure they can provide area-wise population details within 15 minutes. Then why shall we go for census?"

Taj Haider defends the concept of panel system, saying it is getting popular all over the world and it reduces the number of ballot papers printed for the purpose. Besides, the victory of whole panel gives clear mandate to successful candidates.

For him, there are three options: the SC sets aside the SHC decision and the government goes ahead with polls as planned; it upholds the SHC decision and there is a commission to perform delimitation work; or the SC itself gives a clear-cut formula on how to carry out delimitations. The concept of commission is still not clear and they have no idea about its composition, he adds.

Deputy Parliamentary Leader in the Sindh Assembly and MQM MPA Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan blames the government for gerrymandering and trying to work out delimitations in a way which puts the PPP in a better position against its opponents. He says, the condition that candidates shall contest elections in the form of panels is unacceptable to them as it keeps independents out of the race.

The Sindh government, he says, has only two options -- either it shall hold the elections according to the delimitations of 2001 or set up an independent commission to conduct the delimitations exercise afresh.

He rejects the excuse given by Taj Haider on ambiguity about the formation and composition of the proposed commission.

"It’s simple; the commission can comprise of independent individuals known for their integrity and shall be free of bureaucrats or any other people who are on the payroll of the PPP government," he concludes.