Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leaders, Sherry Rehman, Aftab Shaaban Mirani, Khalid Iqbal Memon, Taj Haider and Dr Fehmida Mirza, have said that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, by saying that PML candidates would win the next local bodies elections, has, in fact, laid bare the whole election pantomime.
"It appears that a fake exercise is being staged in the name of local bodies elections to further dupe the international community," they said in a press statement received here from PPP media cell on Saturday.
They said it is strange that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was sitting idle, while the prime minister was addressing public meetings and announced the victory of ruling PML candidates in advance.
They also said the Election Commission had already announced that no political rally and public meeting would be held for the local bodies' elections, which will be held on non-party basis. Yet, the prime minister is openly violating the ECP directives by holding public meetings, while Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim was announcing a list of Nazims and Naib Nazims for 44 Union Councils in his home district as PML candidates and declaring them as winners in advance.
The PPP leaders said the local bodies elections are turning into a big joke on the people of Pakistan, where opponents are being threatened, harassed, and warned of cases under "war on terror" laws if they dared to file nomination papers.
To make further mockery of the exercise, the regime has ordered that no polling should be held in many districts, and all its candidates should return unopposed through use of police and state machinery's pressure and black-mailing against the opposing candidates, they alleged.