PML-N workers want elections in party

DAWN.COM

Calls for intra-party elections and not selections are growing in the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) as several leaders have urged the leadership to allow them a fair chance of contesting for district party offices.

Background interviews show the non-elected cadre of the party feels it has been cornered as neither the leadership nor parliamentarians listen to them.

A leader seeking anonymity said assembly members not only clash with each other but also with non-elected leaders on various party matters as well as utilisation of development funds.

About the polling process, one of the leaders said that candidates should be given an opportunity to speal< to the general council before voting about their plans.

This `pro-democracy` group believes that intra-party elections, as enshrined in the party`s constitution, will strengthen democratic traditions.

They say a party that cannot abide by its own constitution cannot protect the Constitution of the country.

Some of them even plan to move a court of law under the Political Parties Act if the leadership resorted to a dummy polling process.

Naeem Mir, a member of the `group`, has written to PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif and other senior leaders suggesting several measures to strengthen the party, particularly in Lahore, by creating a balance in organisational responsibilities between elected and non-elected cadres.

Naeem Mir is a trader leader who recently resigned from the PML-N basic membership in protest at the `arrogance` of Hamza Shahbaz.

Three days ago, he retracted the decision after Hamza and he patched up their differences on the intervention of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. In his letter, Mr Mir suggested that either the president or the general secretary at the district level should be a non-elected senior member.

Starting from Lahore, he wrote, all other offices should also be equally divided among the elected and nonelected cadres.

Mr Mir said his suggestions did not aim at promoting group politics or a party within the party. Rather these were aimed at informing the leadership about the frustration senior members felt in the party folds.