KARACHI, Nov 27: Electoral provisions in the Sindh Local Government Act 2013 are not clear enough and need significant amendments to ensure a credible polling process, said speakers at a programme on ‘Forum on Local Elections Framework’ organised by the Democracy Reporting International (DRI) on Wednesday as part of its European Union-funded project ‘Supporting Advocacy for Electoral Reforms in Pakistan’.

Besides members of civil society organisations, lawmakers and representatives of different political parties attended the event.

Presenting the DRI assessment, elections expert Hassan Nasir explained that the provincial electoral framework did not fulfil Pakistan’s commitments such as those on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and discussed a number of issues including transparency of the electoral and counting processes, moving the electoral system in law, effective resolution of disputes and provision of legal grounds for observations of elections by independent observers and citizens’ groups.

Conceding the positive initiative of holding a party-based election, Mr Nasir said that a number of key issues were missing from the act itself and had been deferred to ‘guidelines’ or the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). He observed that though the LG system allowed candidates to contest independently but it was a mixture of direct and indirect elections.

He said that the SLGA 2013 did not guarantee equal suffrage since there were major variances in the population sizes for town committees, municipal committees and for a metropolitan corporation. “The act should define minimum and maximum number of voters in the constituency/ward of a council.”

He said that the act also had not outlined any mechanism to prevent gerrymandering of revenue boundaries and the provincial government could divide a council, or reconstitute two or more by a simple notification.

Mr Nasir said that any guidelines on campaign regulation, results announcement deadlines and qualification/appointment criteria for election tribunals were missing from the act.

He said that the act needed to define an “officer” with regards to appointments of returning officers and assistant returning officers.

Moreover, he said that no specific provisions had been given for filing and processing of complaints during the pre-poll period.

Talking about the criteria for voters’ registration, he said that it was not clear whether the applicant must be 18 years’ old at the time of enrolment or on the election day.

He said that according to the act, the ECP is to devise additional criteria for voters’ registration and stressed that the commission was merely a body for implementing existing rules.

Other major issues emerged during the discussion included inadequate representation of women, vague provisions on candidates’ panel system, results’ tabulation and subjective criteria for poll candidacy.

A large number of participants from the interior of Sindh called for making public the SLGA after translation in Urdu and Sindhi.

Lawmakers from opposition parties also raised their concerns on the occasion and almost all of them complained about the way in which the bill had been hastily passed in the house.

They included Haji Shafi Jamote of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Samar Ali Khan of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf, Khalid Hussain of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Shahryar Mahar of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional.

The MQM lawmaker called for the formation of a dedicated parliamentary committee to address the concerns of all stakeholders.

The representative of the PML-N accused the government of pre-poll rigging in the way they carried out delimitation of constituencies. He gave the example of Shah Latif Town and Gulshan-i-Hadeed, saying that the former had a population of just 1,200 but it had been made into one union council while the latter had a population of 80,000 and only three union councils had been carved out from it.

He remarked that likewise the past, the ECP or any other independent body should be responsible for the delimitations.

PML-F’s Shahryar Mahar seconded this demand. He said that in Punjab the PPP had moved courts against delimitation by the Punjab government while here they were doing the same via the provincial government.

Samar Ali Khan of the PTI demanded the introduction of biometric voter identification systems at the polling stations.

In the end, it was left to the former provincial law minister, who now holds the portfolio of parliamentary affairs and human rights, Dr Sikandar Mandhro to defend his brainchild.

He patiently explained that the government had tried to formulate and enact the best possible law given the time constraints and amendments can always be made in the act to improve it further.

He stressed that delimitation was carried out by government officers, who were civil servants and not affiliated to any political party. He said that if there had been gerrymandering then the officials had been wrong to do so.

Defending the vague electoral process in the SLGA, he passed the buck on the ECP saying, “Defining details of the electoral process and conduct of elections is the domain of the ECP and not the responsibility of provincial assembly. How can we legislate the preferences of each and every union council, municipal committee, or town committees?”

Talking about increasing the number of reserved seats for women candidates, Dr Mandhro said that the allocation was in line with the constitution and with the practice of national and provincial assemblies. However, he added, there was no restriction on women’s participation on general seats.

Copies of the act would be made public in Urdu and Sindhi within a couple of weeks, he added.