The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has stated that the elections for the Sindh LG would take place on the 15th as scheduled.
The request made by the Sindh government to postpone the local government elections in Karachi and Hyderabad due to “threats to political figures” was denied.
According to a source at the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the second round of local body elections in Sindh will go place tomorrow, January 15, as scheduled.
Sources claim that the electoral watchdog once more turned down the Sindh government’s request to postpone the local body (LB) polls in Hyderabad and Karachi.
After receiving a letter from the provincial government requesting the postponement of the LB elections, the commission convened a meeting under the leadership of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja.
A copy of a letter the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government issued earlier in the day asking the ECP to postpone the LG elections in Hyderabad and Karachi is available with The Express Tribune.
The letter was sent less than a day after the ECP rejected the province government’s original plea for the local body elections to be delayed and announced that the elections would take place tomorrow as scheduled.
The electoral watchdog had put the Sindh government’s 2013 notification against the Sindh LG Act on hold. Additionally, it had turned down the province government’s plea to postpone elections in the Dadu district because of the aftermath of the flood.
ECP cannot disagree with the Sindh government’s choice to postpone the LG elections. Memon
However, the decision In a subsequent letter to the ECP, the PPP insisted that the reason it chose to postpone the polls in Hyderabad and Karachi was the “non-availability of Pakistan Army and Civil Armed Forces for static deployment at the polling sites.”
The provincial government said that a previous plea to the election monitor about the issue had been turned down.
The statement continued, “In the decision reached by the ECP, the commission also rejected the withdrawal of notifications about the number of union councils,” and said that the order also did not address the concerns of the Sindh government on the lack of law enforcement services.
The Sindh government stated in the letter that a meeting was convened to discuss the matter, and that senior members of the security agencies as well as government officials and the secretary of the ECP were present.
According to the statement, “at this meeting, the law enforcement and intelligence services informed the participants of the hazardous law and order situation as well as specific threats to various political leaders and employees of political parties.”
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The province administration requested in its final paragraph of the letter that the electoral watchdog postpone the local government elections in Hyderabad and Karachi.
The memo advised delaying the second round of local elections until security forces were on hand. In 16 districts in Hyderabad and Karachi, the LG elections will be held.
Election materials are delivered to the dispatch centre
Election supplies for the LG polls have arrived in vehicles at the Sindh dispatch centre.
Express News reports that the cars that would convey voting materials from the dispatch centre to the polling places have arrived at various district centres. The employees, however, were not there.
Establishment of a central control room
The ECP has set up a central control room for three days, and it will run continuously till the results of Sindh’s LG elections are made public.
If there are complaints, the control room will also issue immediate directives.
According to the election monitor, “no meddling during voting will be tolerated,” and “prompt action will be taken against the violators.”
In 16 districts of Sindh, the second round of local government elections was scheduled to take place on July 24, 2022.
However, the Sindh government had excused itself from holding the elections due to a lack of security and police presence brought on by the floods that devastated the country as a whole, including Sindh.
Later, the LG elections were moved to August 28, but they were not held on that day, therefore a new date of October 23 was chosen.
The voting, however, was also delayed on that day.
The local government elections in Karachi, Hyderabad, and Thatta will take place on January 15 as scheduled, according to a decision made by the ECP earlier this month.
