By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The election authorities ordered local government polls in the country’s most populous province to be held in the last week of December, ending a yearslong delay marked by repeated changes to provincial laws and requests for more time.
The Election Commission of Pakistan decided on Wednesday to proceed with the Punjab elections based on the existing Punjab Local Government Act 2022 and rules framed thereunder, according to the court order.
The four-member bench, led by Chairman Sikandar Sultan Raja and including Nisar Ahmed Durrani, Shah Muhammad Jatoi and Babar Hassan Bharwana, directed its office to start the delimitation process from tomorrow and complete it within two months. “Thereafter, the election programme should be announced and the election should be held in the last week of December 2025,” the order said.
“The office is expected to follow the timelines strictly.” The decision comes amid a constitutional mandate under Article 140-A and Section 219(4) of the Elections Act, which requires the commission to hold local government elections within 120 days of the expiry of the institutions’ term. Punjab’s local bodies completed their tenure on Dec. 31, 2021, meaning polls were due by the end of April 2022.Delays stemmed from the provincial government’s repeated amendments to the local government law. In April 2019, the then Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led Punjab administration dissolved the institutions, which were later restored by the Supreme Court before their term ended.
The commission had previously granted the Punjab government three months in June to complete preparatory activities “in the interest of justice,” warning that failure to comply would prompt it to issue orders for conducting the elections. “In case of failure, the commission will issue appropriate orders regarding the conduct of local government elections in the province of Punjab,” that earlier order said.
Having received no response after the three-month period, the commission scheduled Wednesday’s hearing and notified the local government secretary. The secretary appeared in person and attributed the delay to floods, saying the legislation process for the Punjab Local Government Act was nearing completion.
He noted that the standing committee had finalized the process and the bill would be presented in the Punjab Assembly for passage, while requesting additional time until the assembly session convened. The bench rejected the plea, stating that the commission had “exhausted all possible efforts” to conduct the elections, but the provincial administration “acted in a dilatory manner to delay the conduct” of polls on various pretexts.
The order emphasized the commission’s “constitutional obligation to organise and conduct elections in accordance with the Constitution and law,” which grants it “exclusive, broad and extensive powers to fulfil its constitutional responsibilities.” It also highlighted the provincial governments’ duty to establish local government systems as per the Constitution and law.
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