President signs bill into law

ISLAMABAD:

The required legislation to hold the first-ever party-based local government elections in the capital completed all the parliamentary stages on Tuesday after President Mamnoon Hussain signed into law the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Bill 2015.

Following a formal endorsement from the president, the local government law for Islamabad is now in effect.

On July 29, the National Assembly had approved the bill with amendments suggested to it by the Senate. Senators had challenged the ‘party-less’ clause of the bill, suggesting instead that local government elections in Islamabad should be held on a party basis. Now under section 17 of the bill, the necessary rules will be framed within a week to hold the elections.

The ECP spokesperson told The Express Tribune that the election body would hold fresh delimitation of constituencies, as now it had been decided that local bodies election would be held on party basis.

He said every union council would be further delimited into six wards adding the process could take a month.

He said it was yet to decide if ECP would seek fresh nomination papers from candidates or would only seek party affiliation certificates after announcing previously submitted nomination papers as valid.

He said following the completion of delimitation of union councils afresh, election schedule would be announced by the ECP.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5^th, 2015.