ECP seeks nominations for tribal districts’ reserved seats in PA

PESHAWAR: With the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly’s elections in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas slated to be held on July 2, the provincial election commissioner has directed political parties to submit priority lists of their candidates for the four seats reserved for women and one for non-Muslims until May 11.

PEC Pir Maqbool Ahmad, who is the returning officer for the reserved seats in question, issued a public notice inviting nomination papers from candidates for those seats.

He said only those registered as voters in the erstwhile Fata were eligible to file nomination papers against reserved seats.

Polls in erstwhile Fata to be held on July 2

Nomination papers for reserved seats will be submitted to the PEC’s office here.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has so far not clarified whether the condition mentioned in Section 206 of the Elections Act, 2018, for allocating five per cent of the total seats to women by a political party will be applicable to the May 11 elections or not.

A day ago, the ECP had announced schedule for these polls.

Under Section 57(3) of the Elections Act, returning officers of the 16 general seats also issued public notices on Tuesday.

Through public notices, the returning officers have published the election schedule in their respective constituencies in the seven tribal distracts and six former frontier regions.

While the general seats will be filled through direct elections, the five reserved seats will be filled through proportional representation of number of general seats won by a political party for which every party has to submit its priority list of candidates.

The ECP has already issued directions under Section 5 (4) and 181 of Elections Act that no government or authority should post or transfer any officer in the districts, where schedule for election has been issued, until the names of returned candidates are published.

Also, no government functionary or elected representative including a local government functionary shall announce any development scheme for the constituencies where election is under process until July 2, 2019.

According to the delimitation of constituencies carried out by the ECP, Bajaur and Khyber tribal districts have three provincial assembly constituencies each and Mohmand, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal districts two each, while the six former Frontier Regions of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan and Tank jointly have a single seat of KP Assembly.

Under the Elections Act, the maximum permissible limit of elections expenses by a candidate for the provincial assembly is Rs2 million.

A total of 2.691 million voters, including 1.617 men and 1.074 women voters will exercise their right to vote.

The highest number of 522,480 voters is registered in Bajaur tribal district. The voters include 308,104 (59 per cent) men and 214,376 (41 per cent) women.

Khyber tribal district has the second highest voters i.e. 519,290, including 294,228 (57 per cent) men and 225,062 (43 per cent) women.

South Waziristan has 376,635 registered voters, including 231,831 (62 per cent) men and 144,804 (38 per cent) women; Kurram tribal district 352,794, including 200,621 (57 per cent) men and 152,173 (43 per cent) women; North Waziristan tribal district 294,820, including 204,546 (69 per cent) men and 90,274 (31 per cent) women; Mohmand tribal district 271,251 including 170,279 (63 per cent) men and 100,972 (37 per cent) women, and Orakzai district 192,633, including 108,649 (56 per cent) men and 83,984 (44 per cent) women.

The six former FR regions collectively have 161,992 votes, including 98,894 (61.04 per cent) men and 63,098 (38.95 per cent) women.