LAHORE - The PPP yesterday called for the appointment of judicial officers to conduct the local bodies’ elections.
Their demand follows the government’s decision earlier this week to appoint local civil servants to oversee the polls in place of members of the judiciary who conducted previous local body elections. The PPP believes these officers are beholden to the ruling PML-N’s legislators. Its call marks a U-turn from its earlier stance when the PPP accused judicial officers of rigging the 2013 elections. Since then a new crop of judicial officers has been appointed in place of those the party blamed for the 2013 election controversy. The PPP leadership now believes officers from the present judiciary can be trusted to be impartial. ‘Things have changed a lot since then. We have now a different judiciary which is independent and free of external influence”, the party’s central Punjab President Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo told The Nation. Wattoo said the previous judiciary had been tainted by its decision to sack Yusuf Raza Gilani as prime minister in 2012.
In the last six months of the PPP government’s tenure, the Supreme Court blocked spending from development funds in the constituencies of its National Assembly members. The move put the party at a disadvantage and boosted its rivals.
“The frequent suo moto notices taken by previous judiciary and that too on trivial matters badly hampered the performance of our government. Many at that time thought that judicial officers performing duties as returning officers were in cahoots with some state institutions to defeat the PPP and to bring the PML-N into power”, he said.
Despite its previous record, Manzoor said he believed returning officers from the present judiciary would not only stay neutral, but also try to make amends for the tarnished image of their former colleagues.
The party opposes the appointment of government officials as returning officers because they are servants of the PML-N and their postings and transfers are controlled by its MPAs and MNAs, he added.