By-elections on nine NA seats on September 29

ECP releases schedule; nomination papers to be submitted from August 10 to 13, verification by August 17

ISLAMABAD:

By-elections on nine National Assembly (NA) seats will be held on September 25, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced on Friday.

The ECP had previously accepted 11 out of the 131 resignations tendered by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNAs, following the removal of the party chief from the office of the prime minister earlier this year.

According to the schedule released by the ECP, the candidates can submit their nomination papers from August 10 to 13, which will be verified by August 17, whereas the election symbols will be issued to the candidates on August 29.

According to the Election Commission, the by-elections will be held for the constituencies of NA-22 Mardan, NA-24 Charsadda, NA-31 Peshawar, NA-45 Kurram, NA-108 Faisalabad, NA-118 Nankana Sahib, as well as NA-237, 239, and 246 of Karachi.

On July 28, National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf accepted the resignations of 11 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) members exactly 109 days after they resigned from their seats.

Read PTI moves IHC over slow progress in NA resignations

With the move, the process of accepting the resignations formally began.

The NA speaker accepted the resignations of several key PTI leaders, including former human rights minister Shireen Mazari, ex-interior minister Ijaz Ahmed Shah, ex-state minister for parliamentary affairs Ali Muhammad Khan and ex-state minister for information and broadcasting Farrukh Habib, under Article 64 (1) of the Constitution.

The other PTI lawmakers whose resignations have been accepted are Fazal Muhammad Khan, Shaukat Ali, Fakhar Zaman Khan, Jamil Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Akram Cheema, Abdul Shakoor Shad and Shandana Gulzar Khan. Mazari and Shandana were elected on the reserved seats for women from Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, respectively.

Article 64 (vacation of seats) states: “A member of [Majlis-e-Shoora] parliament may, by writing under his hand addressed to the speaker or, as the case may be, the chairman resign [from] his seat, and thereupon his seat shall become vacant.”

The NA Secretariat officials said that the resignations were accepted after fulfilling the requirements under the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007.