ISLAMABAD (Kashmir English): The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday announced it has decided to conduct local government elections in Islamabad.
The Commission also directed its office to prepare the election schedule.
In a reserved decision on the long-standing issue, the Commission noted that the amendment made in Section 15 of the ICT Local Government Act, 2015, through the ICT Amendment Act, 2024, is not in “consonance with the provisions of the Constitution, the Elections Act, 2017 and Section 20 of the ICT Local Government Act, 2015.”
It further said that under the Election Act, the ECP has the authority to appoint its own officers for conducting polls.
The Commission also noted that it may designate district returning officers (DROs), returning officers (ROs) and assistant returning officers (AROs) from government departments, the judiciary or other public institutions for the conduct of election.
It ruled that secretaries of union councils cannot fulfil the responsibility of conducting local government polls, and that election on reserved seats must also be carried out by officials nominated by the Commission.
Tenure of Islamabad’s local govt ended in 2021
According to the ECP ruling, the tenure of Islamabad’s local government ended on February 14, 2021. The Commission emphasised that, as an independent constitutional body, it has the responsibility to hold local government elections and is obliged to do so within 120 days of the expiry of a local government’s term.
The ECP, therefore, instructed its office to prepare the detailed election schedule and arrangements for Islamabad’s local bodies polls.
The five-year tenure of the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (MCI), the city’s first and only elected local government body, officially expired in February 2021.
Since then, local government elections in the federal capital have been repeatedly delayed due to legislative amendments and administrative changes, with new election schedules issued and subsequently cancelled multiple times by the ECP.
