Supreme Court deadline: LG polls in K-P not possible by Nov 15, says vote body

Election Commission secretary says it can organise the elections by March next year

ISLAMABAD:

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday said local government elections in Khyber-Pakhtukhwa (K-P) are not possible by November 15, the deadline fixed by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

Talking to reporters, ECP Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan said the commission needs till March next year to complete preparations for organising polls in the province.

Among the time-consuming tasks the commission has yet to accomplish is the procurement of ballot papers in seven colours, one each for the category of seats in the province’s local government system.

Of the seven colours chosen for these categories, three are not available with the Printing Corporation of Pakistan (PCP) which prints these ballots, Ishtiaq said. The ECP would need two to three months to procure the paper, he added.

Moreover, Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) wants to go for a biometric voter identification system. ECP says it would need another few months to procure these machines.

The ECP secretary said the commission will convey this to the Supreme Court on Monday and ask the court to give it time till March next year to hold these polls.



The Imran Khan-led PTI says it is ready for local government polls in K-P. The PTI-led provincial government completed delimitation and finalised local government laws in the province earlier this year.

However, it remained silent on the issue till the apex court once again took up the local government polls case, and summoned the provinces and ECP to get an update on court’s deadline to hold polls by November 15.

Earlier in March, the Supreme Court directed the provincial governments and ECP to hold local government polls.

Except Balochistan where local government polls were held in December last year, these polls are pending in other three provinces since 2009.

In Balochistan, where the election exercise took place almost a year back, the local government system has yet to start functioning.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2014.