Islamabad: After Monday’s close tangle between the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in the federal capital’s first-ever local government elections, the two arch-rivals have started wooing independent candidates in a bid to secure the coveted office of the mayor.
The PML-N and the PTI held separate meetings on Tuesday to start the process of selecting candidates for mayor and three deputy mayors, with both parties claiming that they would succeed in getting their candidate elected as mayor.
The ruling party, which has secured majority of the seats according to unofficial results, also discussed how to get someone elected for the coveted office from the reserved seats of the house.
The PML-N won 19 of the 50 seats of union council chairman but is unable to form government. It needs seven more members to get its mayor elected. The arch-rivals are at the mercy of 13 independents, whose support is of utmost importance to install a mayor of their choice.
According to the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Act 2015, the house of mayor would comprise 66 members: 50 UC chairmen and 16 reserved seats. Of the 16 seats, nine are reserved for women, two each for peasant/worker, youth and non-Muslims, and one for technocrat. The 50 chairmen will elect 16 members for the reserved seats, and later all 66 will elect the mayor and three deputy mayors from among themselves.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Capital Administration & Development Division Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said the PML-N leadership had tasked him with negotiating with the independents to win them over. A senior party member said the leadership had also tasked Tariq Chaudhry and MNA Talal Chaudhry to take into confidence the party’s winning candidates on two issues: who the mayor and three deputy mayors of the capital will be, and which 16 candidates for the reserved seats the party is interested in electing to the house.
The PML-N leadership was briefed that the party’s three potential candidates for mayor have already lost the elections: a relative each of PML-N MNA Malik Abrar and former MNA Anjum Aqeel Khan, and Zafar Ali Shah. Talal Chaudhry said that if the party could not find an appropriate candidate for mayor, it might consider someone from the reserved seats.
Sources close to Maryam Nawaz, however, elaborated that the party could consider someone from the reserved seats for women or technocrat. The final decision lies with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. On the other hand, the PTI has announced that it would contest for mayor and deputy mayors irrespective of the fact that the ruling party has a numerical advantage over them. “We shall try to set up our local government in Islamabad with the help of independent candidates,” MNA Asad Umar, who spearheaded the PTI’s entire LG campaign, said after a meeting with the party’s newly-elected UC chairmen.
Addressing a news conference, Umar put a question mark over the impartiality of the Election Commission of Pakistan. “Collusion between the government and the ECP has failed to damage the PTI’s election campaign.”
He said that withholding the results of the UCs was a cause of concern for the PTI. He did not miss the opportunity to criticise PM Nawaz. “The PM interfered in the LG polls while the ECP turned a blind eye to the code of conduct’s violations in the form of development schemes.”
He clarified that the PTI would not indulge in horse-trading, saying that his party would try to win over independents within moral and legal limits.
A PTI official said that the party had established contact with five independents from Tariq Chaudhry’s constituency.
While the arch-rivals are trying to woo the independents, former National Assembly deputy speaker Haji Nawaz Khokhar’s group claimed to have support of around 10 independents. They also claimed that both the parties had contacted them for support.
Read : Islamabad LG polls: PTI surprises everyone with success in urban areas
