PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has proposed an amendment to the KP Local Government Act, 2013, for the holding of separate elections for both tiers of the local body system in the province, including tehsil councils and village and neighbourhood councils.

The government has already done away with the third tier of the LG system i.e. district councils.

Experts say the initiative will almost double the election costs and efforts.

They wonder if elections for the previous three tier local bodies were held in 2015 the same day, why that couldn’t happen for the current two tiers of the LG system.

Under the KP Local Government Act, 2013, elections for village and neighbourhood councils are to be held on non-party basis and tehsil councils’ on party basis.

Sources said the ruling PTI was reluctant to hold the upcoming electoral exercise on party basis fearing the people’s adverse reaction to the government’s unfavourable socio-economic policies.

Amendment to LG Act 2013 proposed for the purpose

They said most voters were upset at the PTI over failure to live up to their expectation.

Sources said the local government department had proposed an amendment to Section 79 of the KP Local Government Act, 2013, by incorporating an additional clause, 1-A.

According to the proposed amendment, a new sub-section, (1-A), will be inserted to Section 79, which declares, “Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), if the government decides that the elections shall be held separately for village and neighbourhood council and for the chairman, tehsil local government, it may request the Election Commission to hold elections in two phases and the election commission shall hold the elections accordingly.”

In the upcoming local bodies system to be installed after elections, chairman of the village and neighbourhood council will be the members of the tehsil council while the tehsil chairman will be directly elected by the people, who was previously elected by the council.

Another proposed amendment to the law is regarding the tehsil council which states, “If the elections of village and neighbourhood council are held in the first instance under sub-section (1-A), then, the Tehsil Council shall be constituted whenever elections are held for chairman, Tehsil Local Government.”

Sources said the local government department had forwarded the proposed amendment to the law department for vetting and that the amendments would later be tabled on the floor of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly after the cabinet’s approval.

An official in the Election Commission of Pakistan told Dawn that the holding of separate elections of both tiers of local bodies had no justification.

“Separate elections will double the administrative costs, fatigue and required arrangements,” he said.

The official said the holding of village and neighbourhood council elections would cost more than Rs10 billion.

Asked if the ECP will resist the separate election move, he said the commission was bound by the law to follow the government’s decision after the amendment to the law.

The official, however, said the ECP had already told the provincial government that the holding of separate elections for local bodies was unfeasible.

He said the local body polls cost more than the general elections as the former required more polling stations, polling booths and polling staff members compared with the latter due to small constituencies.

The tenure of the three tiers local bodies installed in 2015 had expired on Aug 28, 2019.

According to Section 219 of the Elections Act 2017, fresh polls have to be held within 120 days of the expiry of the term of the existing local bodies. However, elections are not in sight even seven months after the completion of the term of last local bodies.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2020