Owing to absence of legislation and delimitation in the provinces, holding local body elections this year is not possible.
Election Commission Secretary Ishtiak Ahmed Khan on Thursday said after completing delimitation and legislation process, eth provinces would submit a request to the ECP for holding local body elections in the first week of December, then the ECP would issue the schedule. “This mean, elections cannot be held this year.”
Addressing a press conference after an ECP meeting, the secretary said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was yet to table the bill to pave way for conducting local bodies elections. However, he said the KP government had assured them that they would get the bill passed within a few weeks.
Sources said the meeting remained indecisive as the election watchdog could not announce the final date for holding the local bodies elections.
However, the ECP secretary claimed that the meeting ended on a positive note and the next meeting on the same issue would be held on October 22.
Khan said a committee had been formed on the national and the provincial levels to take a final decision on whether to hold elections on a party or a non-party basis.