ECP in legal quandary over holding of local govt polls
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) appears to be in a legal quandary on holding local council elections as the government continues to sit on the official notification of the population census held in 2017.
The ECP has a constitutional obligation to hold local polls but the exercise will be deemed illegal until the final census notification is issued.
The term of local governments in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) expired on Jan.27, 2019 and Aug.28, 2019, respectively, while Punjab dissolved its local bodies on May 4, 2019.
Similarly, the local governments’ tenure in Sindh ended on Aug.30 this year.
The ECP will hold elections to the local governments within 120 days of the expiry of the term of the local governments of a province, cantonment, Islamabad Capital Territory, section 219(4) of the Elections Act, 2017 reads.
This means that the legal deadline for holding LG polls in the three provinces, except Sindh, has already passed.
Perturbed by the situation, Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja has sought Prime Minister Imran Khan’s intervention in the mater.
In a leter addressed to the prime minister, he has invited his atention to Article 51(5) of the Constitution amended through 24th Constitutional Amendment to pave way for allocation of National Assembly seats to the federating units and carrying out delimitation of constituencies on the basis of provisional census results.
He pointed out that the one-time waiver was meant only for general elections and the subsequent by-polls and was not applicable to the local government elections.
“In this backdrop, it is stated that delimitation of constituencies is one of the fundamental steps towards elections.
“According to the Constitution and law, delimitation of constituencies is conducted on the basis of population in accordance with the last census officially published,” he said.
Raja further said it was imperative that the final results of the sixth population census 2017 be officially published at the earliest so that the ECP could carry out delimitation to meet its constitutional obligation of organising and conducting elections to the local governments as enshrined in Article 218(3) read with Article 219(d) and Article 140-A(2).
“The exercise of delimitation will not be possible until the official publication of final results of the sixth population census is made available.
“I am constrained to seek your kind intervention in the mater with the request that steps may kindly be taken for official publication of final results of the sixth national census 2017 at the earliest so that the ECP can proceed with delimitation of constituencies accordingly,” the leter reads.