By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s chief election commissioner has accused the federal government of trying to sabotage Islamabad’s long-delayed local elections, insisting the vote will go ahead on 20 December as scheduled, Dawn newspaper reported on Thursday.
Sikandar Sultan Raja made the remarks on Thursday after learning that Islamabad’s teachers, who have traditionally supplied much of the manpower for polling stations, have been excluded from election duty on the government’s orders.
“Where will the [commission] bring staff from?” he asked. “The [commission] issues directions to the prime minister and the government; directions do not come from them to us.”
He went on: “The federal government wants to sabotage the Islamabad local government elections. I make it clear that local government elections will be held in Islamabad.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed that teachers in the capital must not be given any duties other than teaching. A letter from the federal education ministry, addressed to the Islamabad chief commissioner, the head of the Capital Development Authority, the inspector general of police, the interior secretary and the director general of the Federal Directorate of Education, said such assignments, including election and census work, must be cancelled immediately. A federal government officer told the paper that teachers had demanded exemption from such duties for years and the prime minister had finally accepted their demand.
Islamabad has been without elected local government since the last body’s term expired in February 2021. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was required to hold fresh elections within 120 days. Instead, the commission and the government have spent the intervening years redrawing constituencies and announcing schedules, only for polls to be postponed. The most recent postponement followed an ordinance in January amending the 2015 local government law, which derailed a vote the commission had fixed for 15 February.
The commission ordered the elections to proceed under the 2015 law last month, with Raja remarking at the time that “it appears that the government does not want to hold local government elections in Islamabad”. Nominations closed on 8 November, scrutiny of papers runs until 16 November, and symbols will be allotted on 28 November. Polling is set for 20 December, with results to be compiled between 21 and 24 December.
The row comes as the commission also confronts the federal government elsewhere. It has suspended preparations for local elections in the remaining districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a federal order extended the suspension of Article 140A of the constitution, which provides for local government. It has also set 7 February 2027 for the first phase of Punjab’s local polls.
The CEC spoke while heading a three-member bench hearing complaints of electoral code violations in the NA-77 (Gujranwala) by-election, held on 8 November.
The commission heard that a candidate of the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) had told the district returning officer that Information Minister Attaullah Tarar and another man, Farooq Tarar, had visited the constituency.
Zafar Iqbal, the commission’s special secretary, said the application alleged the minister had breached the code of conduct. “Attaullah Tarar can be sentenced to two years for violation of the code of conduct,” he said, urging strict action. “MNAs and ministers holding office kept roaming in the constituency.”
Tarar did not appear, though he had been summoned in a personal capacity. His lawyer, Sajeel Swati, told the bench the minister was on an official visit abroad, accompanying the prime minister to Turkiye. “These are serious allegations. The commission is held in great respect,” he said.
Raja said the minister’s role on the trip was media coverage. “What else was he to do?” he asked.
The CEC then turned on Asma Naz, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) member of the Punjab assembly and party office-bearer, saying she had kept roaming inside a polling station. “Your position as MPA can go. Such tactics do not increase votes; they decrease them,” he said. Noting that she was smiling, he added: “It seems you have no remorse. A notice of contempt of the [commission] can be issued to you.”
Another MPA, Qudsia Batool, who has also been accused of breaching the code, said she was in her car and about to leave when the video was made.
The commission also questioned the Gujranwala deputy commissioner, who said his office had no information about Tarar’s visit. The CEC pointed out that the minister had arrived by helicopter, so a helipad must have been prepared. “How are you a DC that you do not even know that a minister is coming?” he asked.
The official replied that the helicopter had landed in the cantonment, outside his jurisdiction. Mr Raja said that showed the deputy commissioner did not know his powers there. “Go and read the law,” he said. “We have also held these offices.”
Raja said a fact-finding inquiry into the by-election had been completed and its findings would be shared with all parties. “You respond to the report; the commission will pass an appropriate order against you, DC,” he said, adding that action would be taken against the deputy commissioner, the returning officer and the district monitoring officer.
At Tarar’s lawyer’s request, the commission gave the minister 10 days and said all those concerned must appear in person at the next hearing. The case was adjourned until 1 December.
Separately, the commission has issued an updated list of 160 registered political parties, from which the names of several party heads are missing.
The leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, and the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), Mahmood Khan Achakzai, have been removed.
The commission had given MQM-P until 15 October to hold intra-party elections. A senior ECP official told Dawn that the party had not been delisted. He said a show-cause notice over the failure to hold the polls had been issued, requiring a reply within 14 days, and that a response had been received. If it did not satisfy the commission, he said, the case would be fixed for a hearing and decided accordingly. The PkMAP chief’s name was removed because the party’s intra-party elections and a constitutional amendment remain before the commission.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which lost its bat electoral symbol in January 2024 after the Supreme Court upheld the commission’s ruling in its intra-party polls case, remains registered without a named leader. So does the Pakistan Sunni Tehreek.
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, proscribed a year ago, is still on the list, but its head’s name has been removed.
The list also contains Awaam Pakistan, led by the former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, which the commission had already delisted, and Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, a nine-party alliance formed in 1988 and dissolved more than 33 years ago. A number of lesser-known parties appear without named leaders, including Ittehad-i-Ummat Pakistan, Jamaat-i-Suffah, Labour Qaumi Movement, Awami Democratic Party, Pakistan Qabail Movement and Tehreek-i-Tarraqi o Kamal.
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