ISLAMABAD, Apr 05 (APP):The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) on Tuesday said the second phase of the local government (LG) election process in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) remained largely peaceful with a reasonable voter turnout.
According to the FAFEN report on KP second phase LG polls, the elections were held in a peaceful, orderly, and transparent manner to elect 12,875 representatives on general and reserved seats in 18 districts on March 31 with having 8.5 million registered voters and 41 percent turnout.
The report said the election remained highly competitive as political unity among opposition parties at the Center did not translate into electoral alliances or seat adjustments at the local level. As many as 34,734 candidates including the ones fielded by 25 political parties were in the run for general and reserved seats at the tehsil, neighbourhood, and village council levels.
FAFEN said it was a large scale electoral exercise with more than over 72,000 deployed election officials to manage 6,170 polling stations (3,951 combined, 1,151 male and 1,068 female) comprising 16,509 polling booths (9,218 for men and 7,291 for women).
The KP, it said, had become the first province to have fulfilled its constitutional responsibility under Article 140-A(1) of the Constitution to form the third-tier of governance providing representation to local representatives including the marginalized communities such as peasants, workers, and women.
FAFEN observers reported compliance with the legally required identification process at 81 percent of the observed polling stations.
Similarly, at 80 percent of the observed polling stations, the assistant presiding officers (APOs) were partially complying with the requirements of filling the counterfoils with the complete set of entries – name and number of the council, serial number of voters on electoral rolls, National Identity Card (NIC) number of voters and their thumb impressions along with their own signature and officials stamp.
