ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — The Election Commission of Pakistan has given the Prime Minister’s Office two weeks to send the federal government’s formal written request for local government elections in the country’s 42 cantonment boards, warning that it will be “constrained to pass appropriate orders” if no response arrives.
The direction came in an order passed on November 10 by a five-member bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, which is hearing a case over the delay in holding the polls. The boards are spread across Punjab (20), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (11), Sindh (8), and Balochistan (3).
Overdue since August
According to the order, the terms of the local governments in the cantonment boards expired on April 11. Under Section 219(4) of the Elections Act, 2017, the commission must hold local government elections within 120 days of a term ending, which put the deadline at August 8.
The commission issued a schedule for drawing ward boundaries in all 42 boards on January 11 and published the final lists on April 20. Before it can announce the polls, it also needs a formal written request from the federal government under Section 19-D(2) of the Cantonments Act, 1924.
The order says the commission wrote to the defence secretary on May 14 and June 16, with a reminder on June 3, and that the chief election commissioner wrote to the prime minister on July 16 asking him to intervene. Further letters and reminders followed between July 31 and October 9.
Defence ministry says it is ready
At the November 10 hearing, the defence ministry’s legal adviser, Brigadier (retired) Falak Naz, and Khalil Ahmad Rana, an additional director general of the Military Lands and Cantonments Department, told the commission that the ministry was ready to hold the elections. They said the ministry had already forwarded the request to the federal government, that there had been no delay on its part, and that the matter was pending with the Prime Minister’s Office.
The commission noted that both it and the defence ministry were ready to conduct the polls. Citing Articles 140-A and 219 of the Constitution and Section 219 of the Elections Act, which oblige it to hold local government elections in the provinces, Islamabad, and the cantonment boards, it directed its office to approach the Prime Minister’s Office again by formal letter. The case will be taken up again after three weeks.
The order adds to the uncertainty over local polls in the capital. On Friday, the Islamabad High Court suspended the schedule for Islamabad’s December 20 local government elections, a day after the chief election commissioner accused the federal government of trying to sabotage them.
