Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The poor performance of the election tribunals formed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for local government (LG) elections was badly exposed as they were not able to solve the cases assigned to them in the allotted period of 120 days.

According to reports, the tribunals were able to decide only 984 cases out of the 4,053 applications they were supposed to decide, while billions of rupees were paid to the judges of these election tribunals on account of pays, allowances and other perks, but results were not even close to satisfactory.

According to a report issued by the ECP, some 32 election tribunals were formed after local government elections in Balochistan that were held in December 2013, while some 134 cases regarding violation of the ECP rules and rigging in the elections were filed in these tribunals out of which 122 cases were decided, whereas action on 12 applications are still pending.

The local government election s were held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in May 2015 and to resolve the disputes in the said polls, 93 election tribunals were formed in which 1,740 cases were filed , but only 664 cases were finalised.

In Punjab, the local government elections were held in two legs for which nine election tribunals were formed, where some 1,577 cases were filed and the tribunals decided only 196 cases during the period of nine months.

Similarly, the local government elections in Sindh were held in two stages and to decide the disagreement s between the candidates during these elections, some 27 tribunals were constituted in which 524 election’s cases were registered. However, a single case was not decided in nine months. Two election tribunals were made in Islamabad to settle the issue of local government elections, while about 78 cases were filed in the tribunals, but only two were decided so far.