ISLAMABAD:
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday again warned the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government and federal authorities against delaying local government (LG) elections, directing them to submit all pending delimitation notifications by July 28.
The term of the LGs in the 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 Islamabad’s last local government 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 heard separate cases regarding the LG elections in the KP and the 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.
The chief commissioner and deputy commissioner of Islamabad also appeared in the ICT case.
The commission recalled that on July 1 it had censured both governments for “unnecessarily delaying” the elections, warning that placing obstacles in the conduct of the LG elections could lead to serious consequences.
In its earlier five-page order, the ECP observed that the KP government was not providing “significant assistance” to the commission as required by Article 220 of the Constitution.
Citing Supreme Court judgments reported as SCMR 1 of 2014 and SCMR 714 of 2021, he held that failure to assist the commission amounted to constitutional violation.
The ECP said it had on April 22 requested three documents required for delimitation into 15 districts: tehsil notifications of neighborhood councils (NCs) and village councils (VCs), category-wise reserved seats and authenticated maps.
A reminder issued on May 15 received what the commission called an unsatisfactory response.
