The real story behind unopposed candidates seats

Elections, being one of the most important vehicles of primary democratic process reflect the will of the people and are usually very heavily contested. Thus, it is surprising when a large number of people are elected unopposed .In other words, there is only one candidate for a seat and s/he is therefore elected by default without even a single vote being cast. Some sections of the media have also reported the fact that some people in Balochistan and Sindh particularly have been elected unopposed. According to individu-land field contacts, following is the list of unopposed candidates' district wise in Balochistan:

District	Muslim General	Muslim women	Peasants/ workers	Peasants/wor ker women	Minoritie s	Nazim/Na ib Nazim	Total
Khuzdar	0	2	0	8	12	0	22
Mastung	0	2	0	0	2	0	4
Kharan	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Awaran	0	4	2	6	0	2	14
Pishin	0	2	0	0	2	0	4
Nushki	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
Sibi	31	14	15	17	10	7	94
Ziarat	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Bolan	24	14	12	18	18	8	94
Nasirabad	0	8	0	7	12	1	28
Jaffarabad	4	15	12	21	27	10	89
Killa Saifullah	4	2	0	4	1	0	11
Barkan	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Gawadar	0	0	0	2	0	0	3

This brings the total of unopposed individuals to 270. Democracy becomes a dream if one examines the stories behind the figures. Individu-land field contacts research revealed that candidates are elected unopposed not because of their popularity but because of the fact that tribal leaders sit together to divide the elected seats amongst themselves, commonly known as seat adjustment. The greatest number of unopposed union councilors has surfaced in Bolan. The reason for this is that the two major influentials of that area namely Nawab Yar Mohammad Rind and Mir Asim Kurdguli have divided the seats amongst their cronies. Previously both the sardars used to sit together and divide the seats but recently due to tribal feuds they have not sat together and thus the seats in Rind's area go to Rind and the seats in Kurdguli area goes to Kurdguli. The little voting that will be conducted in Bolan on Election Day will be in the areas where the Kasiranis and the Rind's and Mir Asim Kurdguli's areas overlap and thus consensus cannot be established there. Same is the case for the 8 Nazims and Naib Nazims in the Bolan area that have been ``elected unopposed"

In Jaffarabad, as the table shows a total of 89 have been elected unopposed. The reason for this is the same as in Bolan but here Mir Zafarullah Jamali, the former Prime Minister is deciding who gets what. It is interesting to mention here that as individu-land field contacts were gathering this information, they were told that Mr. Jamali was in the district and that after 1500 hours(the time till which papers were being accepted) the number of unopposed candidates would increase!

At Naseerabad, Mr. Sadiq Umrani of the Umrani tribe had done the needful bringing the number of unopposed candidates in Nasirabad to 28. At Awaran, it was Mir Abdul Majeed Bajenjo whose son Mr. Qudoos Bjanezjo is the Provincial Minister for Livestock. In Khuzdar, the seats from Khuzdar city to Nal area are under the influence of Ghous Buksh Bajenjo and Sanaullah Zehri. In the Bela area of the District Khuzdar it was Sardar Akhtar Mengal and Sardar Ataullah Mengal and from Poanch area to Anjera area of District Khuzdar the Zehri's chief has bestowed seats on people.

Thus this is how 270 candidates in Balochistan have been elected unopposed. Much has been written about how over 80 candidates have been ``elected unopposed" in Sindh due to the considerations of the Sindh Chief Minister. Perhaps, this also needs to be investigated.

Individu-land's field contacts have also revealed that there are 125 seats in Balochistan which will remain empty as there are no candidates for these seats. These are shown in the table below:

Sr. No	Districts	Category of seats.
1	Khuzdar	19 minorities seats
2	Mastung	1 peasant woman seats ; 10 minorities seats
3	Kharan	5 minorities seats
4	Awaran	2 peasant women seats ; 8 minorities seats
5	Pishin	14 minorities seats
6	Nushki	8 minorities seats
7	Sibi	2 peasant women seats; 3 minorities seats
8	Ziarat	9 minorities seats
9	Bolan	3 minorities seats
10	Nasirabad	1 Muslim women seats,1 peasant seat, 1 peasant women seat, 1 minority seat
11	Jaffarabad	1 peasant women seat; 10 minorities
12	Killa Saifullah	7  minorities
13	Barkhan	8 minorities
14	Gwadar	11 minorities

While one can understand that perhaps minorities' seats might be vacant as religious minorities are in small pockets of districts like Dera Bugti etc, individu-land fails to understand as to why peasant seats and women seats have been left vacant? We hope that this is not because while Dir and Battagram in NWFP have received much attention over their ban on women participation, Balochistan districts are taking advantage of being away from the lime light.