LAHORE, 9 July — Supporters of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Saturday pored over plans to stop their newly-elected councilors from fraternizing with the government and instead keep their loyalty to the party intact. PPP officials said yesterday they will organize a meeting within a few days in an attempt to flex the party’s muscles and show just how many of the newly-elected town councilors owe their allegiance to the party.
The convention is to be held before the party mounts its campaign for the election of town nazims and district chief nazim, party officials said. A PPP worker told reporters that his party would transform the convention into a mega event by exposing the military government’s tall claims about transparency in its devolution of power scheme. About half a dozen of the party’s winning candidates had lost their seats due to manipulation of results, he said.
A number of elected party nazims and general councilors had been given affidavits to sign them with threats that in case of non-compliance they might lose their seats on the recounting appeal by the losing candidates, while the appeals of PPP candidates for recount were not being treated according to the procedure.
The sources said in the six towns of Lahore district, PPP had majority in Shalimar Town and Nishtar Town and if a level-playing field was provided it would not even require to enter into alliance with any other political group to form a government. As far as the other four towns are concerned, the PPP was comfortably placed in Data Ganj Bukhsh and Ravi Towns and could form government in alliance with PML-N and independents.
Though the PPP could not perform well in Iqbal Town as far as the election of nazims and naib nazims were concerned, it had overwhelming support of general councilors there, the sources claimed. The party position in Aziz Bhatti Town was also better, said the party sources.
The Lahore Coordination Committee is all set to provide a comprehensive plan to counter the government’s moves of forcing the party’s elected members to change their loyalties, said a member of the LCC. He said numerous cases of harassment had been brought to the notice of the party’s Lahore chapter and an emergency meeting of the LCC had been convened to chalk out a strategy to protect elected party candidates from official pressure.
