PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government on Thursday announced the first phase of local government (LG) elections on 15 December.
Addressing a news conference, KP chief minister’s special assistant on information Kamran Khan Bangash said that the local government election would be held in two phases. In the first phase, village Council and Neighborhood Council elections would be held on December 15. While in the second phase, party based Tehsil Chairman polls would be held on March 25, next year.
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In this regard, Bangash said that a letter has been sent to the Election Commission of Pakistani urging it to ensure the LG elections in December. Kamran Bangash also urged the PTI workers to fully prepare to secure victory in the election.
He informed that elections will be held at the level of 4,201 Village Councils and Neighborhood Councils across KP. Each Neighborhood and Village Council will have an eight-member council. Bangash said KP is financially and logistically ready for the elections. “The provincial government assures full cooperation with the Election Commission in conducting the elections,” Bangash said.
The local government elections have been delayed by almost two year however, the KP governments said that it was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The ministers said that the protection of human life should be considered while deciding on local body elections, pointing out those large gatherings during election campaigns could spread of the pandemic. Besides this the official said that some administrative issues were needed to be resolved before announcing an election schedule for the tribal areas after the merger of tribal districts with the province.
However, the opposition has accused the government of escape from the LG polls because of its flawed policies.