PPP leads in violence-hit Sindh local govt polls

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• Brawls leave two people dead, several injured; polling staff ‘kidnapped’
• Opposition parties unanimously reject elections

KARACHI: The ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) emerged with the highest number of winning candidates on Sunday in the first phase of Sindh’s local government elections, unanimously rejected by the opposition parties and marred by firing, scuffles and deaths.

At least two people were killed and several others were injured on the polling day, which also saw the kidnapping of polling staff members by armed bandits, rigging allegations and assault on election camps, putting a question mark over the performance of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the security administration.

With already 885 out of 946 representatives elected unopposed, the PPP was leading the elections, in which 21,000 candidates contested for 6,277 seats of 101 town committees, 23 municipal committees, 14 district councils, four municipal corporations, eleven town municipal corporations and 887 union councils and union committees.

However, its victory came with serious allegations of rigging, violence and the use of government machinery.

The opposition parties — the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Sindh United Party (SUP), Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) and Majlis Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM) — rejected the entire electoral process and demanded the ECP declare the election null and void and call a fresh one.

However, the provincial government ruled out such a possibility and described the demand as an “escape” from opposition parties after they “failed” to field candidates in all districts.

“The rigging allegations are coming from those [opposition parties] who didn’t have candidates to contest polls,” Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon told Dawn. He said the scale of violence was “nominal”, as the incidents were reported at only a few polling stations.

Sindh’s Inspector General of Police Ghulam Nabi Memon agreed with the minister, insisting that scuffles broke out in only 40 of the 9,000 polling stations. He said the situation was much worse during the 2015 local government elections when “more than a dozen were killed and scores were injured”.

The 14 districts of the four divisions — Sukkur, Larkana, Shaheed Benazirabad and Mirpurkhas — include Ghotki, Sukkur, Khairpur, Larkana, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Kashmore-Kandhkot, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Naushahro Feroze, Shaheed Benazirabad, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot and Tharparkar.

In the second phase, voting will take place in the Hyderabad division along with provincial metropolis Karachi on July 24.