ISLAMABAD: Local government elections in Balochistan are set to go months beyond the legal deadline, as the high court’s order of halting the delimitation exercise continues to be extended each time the case is taken up for hearing.

A senior official of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) told Dawn that the term of Balochistan’s local government institutions had expired on Jan 27 and under the laws the polls were supposed to be held by the last week of May.

He explained that polls should have been held within 120 days after the expiry of the LG bodies’ term under Article 140-A of the Constitution, Section 219 (4) of the Elections Act 2017 and Section 16 (2) of the Balochistan Local Government Elections Act 2010.

Under the situation ECP will need to approach apex court, says official

To meet the legal requirement, a schedule for the local government polls had to be announced weeks before the elections but the Balochistan government wanted the polls to be delayed for six months under the pretext of amending the local government law, which was unacceptable to the commission, the official said.

In February, the Balochistan High Court ordered that the delimitation process be halted till the last week of the month, the ECP official said, adding that the stay had been extended multiple times since then.

He said the situation required the ECP to approach the Supreme Court.

However, he said the ECP would need three to four months to hold the elections even after getting a go-ahead.

Despite the fact that the delimitation exercise had almost been completed, the legal formality of inviting objections was yet to be fulfilled, he added.

The ECP official said the commission might have to undertake the exercise afresh in case of a major change in the LG law by that time.

In February, the ECP had received through official channels a copy of a resolution unanimously adopted by the Balochistan Assembly, demanding that the ongoing delimitation exercise and local government elections in the province be put off indefinitely.

The resolution recommended that the provincial government take up the issue with the federal government, which in turn should ask the ECP to postpone the polls so that the local government system could be reformed.

The development took place after the treasury and opposition benches joined hands to adopt the resolution.

It was moved by Balochistan Minister for Higher Education and Information Zahoor Ahmed Buledi on behalf of all members of the assembly.

The same day the ECP sent to the chief secretary and the secretary of the local government the minutes of a high-level meeting rejecting the plea for putting off delimitation and local government polls.

Similar tactics had been used by the Balochistan government in 2013 to get the LG polls delayed but later became the first province to hold the elections after the apex court put its foot down.

The BHC had also been approached in 2013 when the government had amended the law after the announcement of the schedule for polls. But the bench, headed by then BHC chief justice Qazi Faez Isa, had asserted itself to allow the process to continue.

The official said the ECP had been advising the provinces since the third quarter of 2018 to amend their respective LG laws if they wanted to ensure the holding of timely polls. However, he regretted that the Balochistan government ignored the ECP request for cooperation though Article 220 of the Constitution read: “It shall be the duty of all executive authorities in the federation and in the provinces to assist the commissioner and the Election Commission in the discharge of his or their functions.”

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2019