ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is unable to comply with the Supreme Court’s directive requiring the commission to announce the date for local government elections in all provinces and the federal capital on Monday (Oct 21).

“The ECP can do it only after provinces carry out delimitation exercise and publish it in the gazette,” an ECP official told Dawn on Saturday.

He pointed out that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad had not yet framed local government laws, an exercise to precede fresh delimitation.

The official said an important meeting of the ECP would be held on Oct 22 to discuss the progress made by provinces. All provincial chief secretaries, the chief commissioner of Islamabad and the chairman of Nadra will attend the meeting. Acting Chief Election Commissioner Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani will be in chair.

He said committees formed to discuss different aspects of the coming local government elections would also meet in Islamabad for three days starting from Oct 22 and submit their reports to the ECP by Oct 30. “We can say that a clear picture as to when holding of local government elections will be possible will emerge by the end of this month,” he observed.

At the last meeting, held on Oct 3, provinces had assured the Election Commission that they would complete the prerequisites for holding of polls by the end of next month. “But we cannot do anything on assumptions and will be needing requisitions for holding of elections along with the notifications before announcing the election schedule,” the official said.

He said once provinces would propose dates for LG polls, the ECP would have to see if it was administratively possible and accordingly adjust the dates.

He said provinces wanted holding of LG polls on old census blocks while the electoral rolls had been prepared in line with the new census blocks. “We need to see what time would be required by Nadra to prepare the electoral rolls,” he added.

The official said various other technical aspects were required to be thoroughly deliberated upon. The implications of holding non-party based election are supposed to be examined. He said different kinds of nomination papers had been prepared by provinces and their criteria for qualification and disqualification had dissimilarities.

Answering a question, the official said the ECP had been writing to provinces since the passage of the 18th Amendment in constitution, asking them to frame local government laws and go for delimitation.

The official said governments in Punjab and Sindh could rightly be blamed for slackness as the provinces were ruled by same parties which were in power before the 2013 general elections. It would be unfair to hold governments in the KP and Balochistan responsible for any delay because political parties ruling these provinces had been in power only for around four months, he added.

The official pointed out that the KP government was very serious about holding of early local government elections.

He said other arrangements, including printing of ballot papers, deployment of security staff, appointment of election tribunals and appellate tribunals, voters’ awareness campaign, establishment of polling stations were among the multiple tasks required to be carefully looked into to avert a fiasco in unnecessary haste.