ISLAMABAD:
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday again warned the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government and the federal authorities against delaying local government (LG) elections and directed them to submit all pending delimitation notifications by July 28.
The tenure of the LGs in KP ended on March 15 this year. Under the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013, local representatives are elected for a four-year term.
The term of the last local government in Islamabad expired in February 2021, and elections have since been delayed under various pretexts, leaving around 2.5 million residents without elected local representatives. The ECP was hearing separate cases on LG elections in KP and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
In the KP case, Chief Secretary Shehab Ali Shah, LG Provincial Secretary and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) officials appeared before a four-member bench headed by Sindh ECP member Nisar Ahmed Durrani.
Islamabad Chief Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner also appeared in the ICT case.
The commission recalled that on 1 July it had censured both governments for “unnecessarily delaying” the elections and warned that creating obstacles in the conduct of LG polls could have serious consequences.
In its earlier five-page order, the ECP observed that the KP government did not provide “meaningful assistance” to the commission as required under Article 220 of the Constitution.
Citing Supreme Court judgments reported as 2014 SCMR 1 and 2021 SCMR 714, it held that failure to assist the commission constituted a constitutional violation.
The ECP noted that on April 22, it had sought three documents required for delimitation in 15 districts: professional notices from Neighborhood Councils (NCs) and Village Councils (VCs), category-wise reserved seats and authenticated maps.
A reminder sent out on May 15 had received what the commission described as an unsatisfactory response.
