ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: The local government elections in Punjab and Sindh are set to be delayed for an indefinite period and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will not announce the schedule planned for Friday (today).

A senior ECP official told Dawn that none of the two provinces had so far submitted to the commission updated LG laws after addressing the identified lacunae and notifications about election rules and delimitation of constituencies – the prerequisites for the issuance of the schedule. He said that while the Sindh government was openly saying that elections in the province were not possible before March, Punjab had officially conveyed to the commission that delimitation was to be completed by Dec 5.

At a recent inter-provincial meeting presided over by acting Chief Election Commissioner Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, Punjab and Sindh governments had been asked to provide the prerequisites by Thursday — a day before the planned announcement of schedule in the two provinces.

The official said the LG polls in Sindh and Punjab were to be held on Jan 18 and Jan 30 next year, respectively. He said it would not be possible for the ECP to announce the schedule on Friday because the provinces had failed to submit the prerequisites by the deadline (Thursday).

He said an anomaly had been pointed out by the ECP in the LG law of Punjab wherein a panel of six candidates was proposed to contest direct elections on a single party symbol. The law was vague because the consequences of disqualification of one of the panellists were missing in it, he added.

The official said that section 13 of the law had been amended and now each union council would consist of directly-elected chairman and vice chairman as joint candidates and six general members, one from each ward of the UC.

He said the amendment required a fresh exercise to define boundaries of each ward of the UC and the exercise under the delimitation schedule prepared by Punjab was to be completed by Dec 5. He said polling dates had been selected after a meticulous calculation and each electoral activity was linked with other.

The ECP official said the printing of nomination papers was to start soon after the announcement of schedule which would now be made on dates to be worked out afresh. “We will have to set fresh timelines for various activities linked with the electoral exercise.”

He said that under a plan, ballot papers for Sindh and Punjab were to be printed soon after the publication of final list of candidates which under the previous plan was to be done on Dec 26.

He said the Printing Corporation of Pakistan and the Pakistan Security Printing Corporation had been assigned the task for printing ballot papers in coordination and collaboration with other printing presses in the public sector.

The official said voter lists were also to be prepared in conformity with the delimitation exercise and any uncalled-for delay in completion of delimitation would result in disturbing the whole plan.