ISLAMABAD has a reputation of being ‘no one’s city’ but in fact it has owned politicians of all hues. At each general election (during 1988 to 2002) it choose a new party among the major political parties to represent it in the National Assembly.

When it was allotted two seats in that assembly in the 2002 elections, it sent an odd couple to the august house — a PPP Jiyala and an MMA Maulana — as if to balance each other.

The federal capital is likely to witness two exciting and tough electoral contests on January 8 when polling will be held to elect two members of the National Assembly from the territory where after the decision of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) to boycott the polls a triangular contest is expected between the three mainstream political parties — Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the erstwhile ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) and the PML-N.

Islamabad has been divided into two National Assembly constituencies — NA-48 and NA-49 — after new delimitation of constituencies in the country before October 2002 election.

Earlier, Islamabad had only one National Assembly constituency (NA-35), which had been won each time by a different party and even by an independent candidate in the elections held between 1988 and 1997.

There are 23 candidates in the run for NA-48 constituency whereas 11 are vying for NA-49 constituency. Electioneering for the 2008 election has not so far gained momentum in Islamabad, which is generally known as a sleepy city of bureaucrats and government servants.

NA-48: Political experts believe that after the withdrawal of nomination papers by former MNA from this constituency Mian Mohammad Aslam of the JI, the main contest here will be between PPP’s Dr Syed Israr Shah and the PML-Q’s Rizwan Sadiq Khan. The PML-N has awarded the ticket to Anjum Aqeel Khan, who is the senior vice-president of the party’s Islamabad chapter, but is not a known figure in the capital, and is unlikely to create any trouble for his rivals.

Rizwan Sadiq Khan, a former chairman Zakat council, is a new name in the election politics, but has influence in rural areas of the capital as he is considered a big landlord.

Azeem Chaudhry, who was denied a PML-Q ticket, is also contesting from this constituency independently. Although, Azeem Chaudhry had been active in politics from the PML-Q platform for the past five years, it is believed that he will not be able to gain the sympathies of the PML-Q voters. Azeem’s wife Asia Azeem was the member of the previous assembly on the reserved seat for women from Punjab on the PML-Q ticket.

According to Azeem Chaudhry, the PML-Q leadership had suspended his membership on the day he submitted his nomination papers as an independent candidate. He claimed that the party’s parliamentary board had approved his candidature keeping in view his five-year performance for the party and in the constituency, but it was cancelled by the party chief, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

PPP’s Dr Israr Shah is working very hard nowadays and running his election campaign on a wheelchair after losing both his legs in a bomb explosion in a party camp set up outside the district courts in Islamabad to receive the now deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, on July 17.

Dr Shah is hopeful that the people of his constituency will send him to the parliament in recognition of his sacrifice for the cause of democracy and independence of judiciary.

Dr Babar Awan, who later became senator, was the PPP’s candidate from this constituency in the 2002 election, when he lost to Mian Aslam of the MMA with a margin of about 11,500 votes. Mian Aslam had bagged 40,365 votes whereas Babar Awan could secure 28,775 votes.

At that time, Ahmed Raza Kasuri also fought the election on the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) ticket. Mr Kasuri, who later quit the party and became a Musharraf’s loyalist, could secure only 5,310 votes.

There were 15 other candidates as well in the run at that time, but only Munawar Mughal of the PML-Q and another former MNA from the same constituency Syed Zafar Ali Shah of the PML-N managed to get more than 3,000 votes.

There were 187,426 registered voters in 2002 and the turnout remained 47.07 per cent.

NA-49: Former MNA from the same constituency PPP’s Nayyar Bokhari is again in the run and his main rival is PML-Q’s Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, the son of former deputy speaker Haji Nawaz Khokhar.

Mr Bokhari, who had lost to Nawaz Khokhar in the 1993 election, had taken the revenge of his old defeat from Khokhar’s son in the 2002 election. There are a total of 11 candidates in the field, but the political experts are expecting that the main contest will be between Mr Bokhari and Mr Khokhar. It is believed that it will not be an easy sail for Mr Bokhari this time, as Mustafa Khokhar who had earlier contested the poll as an independent candidate is now in the field with the PML-Q ticket and full support of the establishment.

The PML-N has once again fielded its Islamabad’s president Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, but he is unlikely to create any difficulty for the two old-time rivals.

In the 2002 election, Nayyar Bokhari secured 47,884 votes whereas his main rival Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar as an independent candidate polled 30,016 votes. Dr Tariq Chaudhry of the PML-N bagged only 16,832 votes. The turnout in the 2002 election in this constituency was 55.31 per cent.

In 1988, the only seat from Islamabad was won by Raja Pervez Khan of the PPP who had secured 39,994 votes. His closest rival was independent candidate Haji Nawaz Khokhar with 23,551 votes.

Dr Sarfaraz Ahmed of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, an alliance of nine political parties led by former caretaker prime minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, remained at number three position with 18,398 votes. Syed Zafar Ali Shah, who later became MNA from the same constituency in 1997, was also in the run but from the platform of Pakistan Awami Ittehad (PAI). There were 14 candidates in 1988. The total number of registered voters was 186,306 and the turnout remained 57.91 per cent. It will be a surprise for many that the previous MNA from NA-48 Mian Aslam had also filed the nomination papers from NA-35 in 1988 as a covering candidate for IJI’s Dr Sarfaraz. Though, he had withdrawn his papers, but as his name was present on the ballot paper, he polled 87 votes.

In 1990, there were 13 candidates in this constituency and the seat was won by Haji Nawaz Khokhar, who had contested this time from the IJI ticket. He secured 56,795 votes and after a good fight defeated the former PPP MNA Raja Pervez Khan who could manage to get 43,467 votes. The turnout in this election remained 57.30 per cent where the number of registered voters in 1990 was 189,972.

In 1993, Haji Nawaz Khokhar again won the seat, but this time on the PML-N ticket. Nawaz Khokhar polled 59,308 votes and defeated the PPP’s new entrant Syed Nayyar Bokhari with a margin of over 9,700 votes. There were nine other candidates as well, but no one was able to get respectable votes. The total number of registered voters had increased to 211,821 and the constituency witnessed a record turnout of 57.15 per cent.

In 1997, there were five candidates and the PML-N managed to retain the seat in a one-sided contest, but this time with a different candidate Syed Zafar Ali Shah, who bagged 67,580 votes, against the runner up PPP’s Nayyar Bokhari who obtained 29,847 votes.