THE battle between the Election Commission of Pakistan and the provincial and federal governments has been an almost permanent feature of Pakistan’s electoral scene since 2010, when the responsibility for holding local government elections was entrusted to the Commission under the 18th Amendment. Currently, the ECP is fighting a four-way battle — with the provincial governments of Punjab and KP, the federal government, and the cantonment boards — for LG elections in the two provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), and the cantonment boards. The LGs in Sindh and Balochistan (except in the largest district of Quetta, where the entire term passed without election) have yet to complete their terms.

The ICT LG election is the most disappointing case. The last LG election in ICT was held in November 2015. Its five-year term ended on Feb 14, 2021. Under the Elections Act, 2017, the new election was to take place within 120 days after the previous LGs’ term ended, making June 15, 2021, the due date for the next election. For more than five years, the ECP and the federal government have been haggling over legal points and the possible date of the next election. Since 2021, the ECP has issued the election schedule four times and carried out fresh delimitation five times. Each time it has had to eat humble pie by withdrawing the schedule as the federal government changed the goalposts and amended the LG election law. The latest in the series was the ICT........

© Dawn