KPK Local Body Elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Re-Polling for Local Body Election in KPK

According to the Election Commission, a total of 12913 voters will exercise their right to vote in 03 neighborhood councils in Peshawar for the city council. Re-polling will be held at 05 polling stations in neighborhood council 22 Qadirabad where 4864 voters are male and 4458 voters are female.

Polling will be held at the men’s polling station at the NC Afridi Garhi where are a total of 1970 voters, while re-polling will also be held at the NC Khyber Pakhtunkhwa polling stations where women voters are 1621 who will exercise their right to vote.

The election campaign for the re-polling of the 01^st phase of local body elections in KPK has ended on 12^th February 2022 till midnight. As per information received from the Provincial Election Commission, re-polling will be started on 13^th February 2022 at the various polling stations in 13 districts of the province including Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, and Mardan for which all arrangements have been made complete.

There are a total of 710,472 voters will exercise their right to vote in the re-polling in which 362,924 are male and 347,548 voters are female as reported by the Election Commission.

Suspension of the order of the Peshawar High Court bySupreme Court

Justice Ejaz-ul-Haq and Justice Ayesha Malik of the Supreme Court heard the petition which was against the decision of the Peshawar High Court to hold the local body elections of the second phase in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in which lawyer of Election Commission and other judicial officials appeared in the court.

The lawyer of the ECP said that the Peshawar High Court Abbottabad Bench postponed the schedule of local body elections without hearing of the ECP because the notice of hearing on 01^st February 2022 was received on 02^nd February 2022.

So the High Court had postponed the local body elections till the receiving of notice by the Election Commission. The complainants said in the hearing that due to weather conditions, elections could not be held on 27^th March 2022.

Justice Ayesha Malik said that it was not confirmed that the weather conditions in KPK could hamper the elections so the High Court should have heard the positron of the Election Commission before making the decision.

And Justice Ejaz-ul-Haq said the report of the Meteorological Department should be viewed by the ECP and not by the court. Later, the court suspended the decision of the Peshawer High Court to postpone the local body elections in the province of KPK and issued notices to the parties.

Deployment of Pak Army at Polling Stations

Pak Army has been deployed along with the police to perform duty at the polling stations while the army will also be deployed during the re-polling in KPK. It has come into the information the decision to deploy the Pak Army was taken by the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to the failure of the provincial government to maintain law and order situation for which a letter has also been written to the Ministry of Defense about the deployment of the Pak Army.

As per the report of the Election Commission, in the first phase of local body elections necessary legal action will be taken against those involved in the violent incidents. A video in which ballot papers were being torn at polling stations in Peshawar, breaking of ballot boxes, the beating of polling staff was also shown while the video showed the police personnel was also there but they did not take any action against the violent.

The Election Commission Pakistan took stern action about the failure of the Provincial Government to maintain law and order and said the police were not present as per plan.