ISLAMABAD: Pakistani federal and provincial law ministers on Wednesday unanimously urged all organs of the state to respect the authority of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to set an election schedule amid widespread speculation the date for polls would be unilaterally announced by President Dr. Arif Alvi.
Under the amended Elections Act, 2017, passed by parliament in June, the regulator can announce election dates without consulting the president or any other state institution or official.
“It is the responsibility of all organs of the State to respect autonomy of the Election Commission and its authority in carrying out delimitation of constituencies and determining the election schedule,” said a statement issued by the law ministry after a meeting between federal and provincial representatives.
“As per the Constitution, the conduct of general elections and announcement of elections date is the sole competence of the Election Commission of Pakistan.”
The law ministers also agreed that general elections for both national and provincial seats must be held on the same day to avoid unnecessary waste of resources.
“The Provincial Law Ministers emphasized that in order to strengthen the Federation, to ensure harmony among all federating units and to avoid unnecessary financial burden on the national exchequer incurred owing to provision of security arrangements on different election dates, the general elections to the National and the four Provincial Assemblies must be held on same day,” the statement said.
The president dissolved the country’s national legislature on the recommendation of former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif on August 9, making general elections mandatory within 90 days, or in November, according to Pakistan’s constitution.
However, the outgoing Sharif government’s move to approve the results of a new census a few days before they quit threw the upcoming polls into uncertainty as the ECP was now bound under the constitution to draw new constituency boundaries as per the results of the latest population count. That process could take up to late December, the ECP has said, meaning polling day would be pushed back to as far as March.
Fears persist about the prolonged running of the day-to-day state business in the absence of an elected government, while analysts say any delay in polls could fuel public anger and consolidate the power of the military, which already has an outsized role in Pakistani politics. The army says it no longer interferes in political affairs.
