ISLAMABAD/KARACHI, 4 August — Runoff elections for district nazims will be held in 32 districts, as candidates for zila nazims (district administrators for municipal agencies) have returned in 50 districts in the final phase of the local government elections under the ambitious devolution plan.
The polls to elect zila nazims and naib (deputy) zila nazims were held in 82 districts of the country on Thursday, but there will be runoff elections in 32 districts as no candidate got more than 50 percent votes in their respective districts. The runoff elections will be held between the two top voter-getters on Aug. 8.
“We have completed all arrangements for holding runoff elections in the light of special instructions of Chief Election Commissioner Justice Abdul Qadeer Chaudhry,” said spokesman of Election Commission Kanwar Dilshad. He said the ballot papers for these runoff elections will be printed on Aug. 5 (Sunday), besides making other necessary arrangements.
However, the final phase of the local government elections turned out to be a major disappointment, not just for the military which had undertaken the exercise to determine the political support for itself, but also for the Muslim League party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The polling delivered a split verdict, with the Pakistan People’s Party capturing most of the seats for the nazims, and naib nazims in its home province of Sindh, and the breakaway faction of the Muslim League party, known as the Like-minded group, getting an upper hand in the Punjab. The results were not entirely unexpected.
The results would show that former Interior Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had his cousin emerge triumphant from the ancestral constituency of Gujrat. In Rawalpindi also, Tariq Kiani, who was backed by the Like-minded won hands down, but in several areas of the Punjab, especially in Lahore, a number of runoffs were ordered because none of the candidates could manage 50 percent or more votes.
For the PPP, which again has been a staunch opponent of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the elections brought relief but only partially. It did well in Sindh where Faryal Talpur, sister of Asif Zardari, the jailed husband of the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, won the nazim elections from her home town of Nawabshah. The PPP had its credentials established once again in the districts of Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhasm Nawabshah, Khairpur, Ghotki, Larkana, and Jacobabad, and gave a tough time to Pir Pagara candidate in the latter’s stronghold of Kingri village in upper Sindh. Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a former minister of the PPP, had won in Multan.
In Quetta, Hyderbad city, and in Thar deserts, and also in Karachi, none of the candidates, vying for top slot, could emerge winner, and will have to face repolling on Aug. 8. A large number of independents had won in the Sindh interior of Thatta, Dadu, Nowshero Feoze, Badin, Sanghar, and Shikarpur. These are the areas of mixed population.
The Jamaat-e-Islami has not done badly but its scoring abilities were more pronounced in main cities like Karachi, and Lahore, where its nominees had secured higher number of votes than their closest rivals, but could not be declared successful because of the regulatory restrictions.
