The Punjab government has once again plunged local government elections into uncertainty by rushing to pass a new law, the Punjab Local Government Act, 2025, just as the Election Commission of Pakistan had begun delimitations under the existing law of 2022.
The ECP had already notified its schedule of delimitations at the union council level under the Punjab Local Government Act, 2022 and started preliminary work across the province.
According to the commission’s plan, preliminary delimitations will be completed by October 31, publicly displayed on November 1, followed by objections until November 16 and final publication on December 8.
The ECP had also set up 41 delimitation committees at union council level and 11 authorities to hear objections. It had prohibited any changes in the administrative boundaries of local government areas until the process was completed.
However, the provincial assembly’s sudden passage of the Punjab Local Government Act, 2025 has left that process and the elections scheduled for December in limbo. The new law was approved Tuesday amid an uproar in the House, where opposition members protested the measure as an attempt to derail local elections.
Opposition lawmakers, led by MPA Moin Riaz Qureshi, demanded that the day’s proceedings be postponed due to the deteriorating law and order situation following the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan protests. They shouted slogans, tore copies of the bill and accused Treasury benches of tearing down the legislation without debate.
However, working president Zaheer Iqbal Channar approved the bill clause by clause, while local government minister Zeeshan Rafique presented it in the house.
The bill was kept confidential even after its passage by the standing committee, and its introduction coincided with the ECP’s active implementation of the law, 2022. The Punjab government will now publish a gazette notification on the new law and draft accompanying electoral rules, which will then be sent to the ECP.
The commission must decide whether to proceed under the 2022 law or cancel the current delimitation schedule and start over under the 2025 legislation, a move that would delay the election by several months, if not longer.
The move marks the fourth instance in about a decade in which local elections in Punjab have been derailed by legislative changes. The Punjab Local Government Act 2013, passed under the PML-N government, faced repeated delays until elections were finally held in 2015.
The PTI government’s 2019 Act dissolved those elected bodies prematurely, promising a new system, but elections were never held. After the overthrow of the PTI, the PML-N-led coalition enacted Law 2022, which also failed to materialize in elections due to new delimitations and administrative restructuring.
Now, with Act 2025 replacing it, the province is once again back to square one, with elected local governments still absent and another round of bureaucratic and political wrangling about to begin.
Political observers say successive governments, regardless of party, have repeatedly used legislative maneuvers to retain control over the administrative and financial powers that constitutionally belong to local governments. They argue that much of the routine development work carried out by provincial departments should, in fact, be under the mandate of local elected bodies.
Despite repeated assurances, observers note, grassroots democracy in Punjab remains elusive, with each administration using legal and procedural changes to reset the clock on local government elections.
