MQM wants LG poll process rescheduled

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Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Monday demanded rescheduling the dates of electoral process leading to the local government (LG) elections.

The MQM coordination committee said the nomination forms had not been made available while November 12 was the last date for filing the papers. The new constituencies have yet to be notified while the returning and district returning officers’ list and their offices have also not been notified.

Addressing a press conference at MQM headquarters 9Zero, Haider Abbas Rizvi demanded the federal and provincial election commissions extend the election schedule until Ashura and announce new dates for the process. He said the Supreme Court had allowed postponing the election date from November 27 to December 7 and there was a need to reschedule other electoral processes also.

The nomination forms, he said, was complicated and the poor and uneducated candidates could not file the five-page form in English. He demanded printing the nomination forms in Urdu and making them simpler.

Rizvi claimed the nomination forms were not available in Hyderabad and other cities. He declared the MQM did not want to postpone the LG polls, but wanted the authorities to extend the schedule. “There is complete confusion and election cannot be held in a transparent manner.”The MQM leader said the party had yet to decide about electoral alliances