ECP summons KP, Islamabad officials on July 1 over delay in local govt polls data

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has set July 1 as the deadline for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad authorities to submit pending maps and data needed for local government (LG) elections.

The tenure of LGs in KP ended on March 15 this year. According to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013, local representatives are elected for a four-year term.

The term of the last LG in Islamabad expired in February 2021, and since then, elections have been delayed under various pretexts. As a result, around 2.5 million residents of Islamabad continue to face issues ranging from water shortages to unpaved streets.

Chairing a key meeting at the ECP Secretariat on Tuesday, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja, along with ECP members, the ECP secretary and senior officials, reviewed preparations for LG polls in the federal capital, Punjab and KP.

The ECP expressed concern over the KP government’s failure to provide the requisite maps and other data for 15 districts despite repeated requests.

Invoking Article 220 of the Constitution, which binds executive authorities to assist the ECP, the Commission ordered notices to be issued to the KP chief secretary and local government secretary. They have been directed to provide all required maps and data before July 1, when the case has been fixed for hearing.

The ECP added that notices for personal appearance have also been issued to both officers to explain the delay.

The commission was briefed that the case regarding delimitation of town corporations and notification of the number of union councils (UCs) in each town corporation in Islamabad had been sent to the federal cabinet for approval.

However, neither the notifications nor the maps have been provided to the ECP so far.

Taking note, the commission fixed Islamabad’s case for hearing on July 1 as well, and ordered notices to the Islamabad chief commissioner and deputy commissioner.

For Punjab, the ECP directed its office to complete all necessary preparations for announcing the election schedule as soon as the delimitation exercise is completed. This would enable the commission to immediately announce the LG poll schedule for the province.

Repeated delays

The ECP has conducted delimitations multiple times and issued election schedules on several occasions, only for them to be cancelled later. Earlier, the elections were cancelled a day before polling.

When the local government’s term ended in 2021, the PTI was in power, and elections were supposed to be held within 120 days, but steps were not taken to conduct polls.

Later, when the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) came to power in 2022, it too delayed the elections.

During the PDM’s tenure, elections were set to be held in 50 UCs, but the government argued that the number should be increased to 101 UCs, leading to further delays.

Later, when arrangements were finalised to hold elections in 101 UCs, the PDM government proposed increasing the number from 101 to 125.

Elections were then scheduled for 125 UCs, but in September last year, the government decided to increase the number of general seats in the UCs.

In December 2025, the ECP decided to hold the elections in 125 UCs on February 15 and issued the schedule.

But in January this year, the ECP postponed LG polls in Islamabad for the fourth time following the promulgation of the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Ordinance 2026.

The repeated delays have left Islamabad without an elected local government for over five years, with civic issues mounting in the capital.

LG elections in Punjab have been delayed for a long time, and the matter goes back to 2019.

In April that year, the then PTI-led Punjab government had dissolved the local government institutions, which were later restored by the Supreme Court and subsequently completed their term on December 31, 2021.

Under Article 140-A of the Constitution and Section 219(4) of the Elections Act, the ECP is bound to hold elections within 120 days of the expiry of the term of the local government institutions.

This meant that LG elections in Punjab were supposed to be held by the end of April 2022, but it could not be made possible as the provincial government kept on amending the LG law from time to time.

Last year, on October 8, the ECP ordered LG polls in December 2025 and asked Punjab to immediately start the delimitation exercise and complete the same within two months.

This order, however, was reversed in a meeting chaired by CEC Raja on Oct 21, 2025, in light of the promulgation of a new LG law, the Punjab Local Government Act 2025 (PLGA), after a request by the Punjab government.

The ECP withdrew its original delimitation schedule for the elections issued under the 2022 local government law, giving the provincial government four weeks to finalise the delimitation and demarcation rules.

On October 31, 2025, the ECP said local government elections in Punjab would not be possible before the second quarter of next year as the commission would not have all the prerequisites to hold the electoral exercise during the current year.

The delimitation schedule for LG polls in Punjab was issued in April this year and the exercise is to be completed by August 10, followed by the issuance of the election schedule. ...