The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday ruled out the possibility of conducting local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by November 15, the deadline fixed by Supreme Court earlier this year.
ECP Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan said that preparations to organise polls in the province will be completed by March next year.
Explaining the reason for delays, the ECP secretary listed time consuming tasks which have yet to be completed by the Commission. These include procurement of ballot papers in seven colours, one each for the category of seats devised in the provincial LG system. Of the seven colours chosen for these categories, three are not available with Printing Corporation of Pakistan which prints ballots. He added that it would need two to three months just to procure the paper, seriously denting chances of conducting elections in November.
Khan further said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) wants biometric voters’ identification system implemented for the local government elections. For this purpose, the ECP would require another few months to procure electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The secretary said the commission will explain this to the Supreme Court on Monday and request the apex court to give it time till March next year to hold local government polls in KP.
Imran Khan led PTI says it is ready for local government polls, having completed delimitations and had passed LG laws earlier this year.
However the PTI-led KP government remained silent on the issue till the apex court once again took up the LG polls case and summoned the provinces and ECP to get update on court’s deadline to hold polls.
The SC had directed the provincial governments and ECP in March to hold LG polls. Local government polls have been pending in other three provinces since 2009. Balochistan, where local government elections took place almost a year back, the system is yet to start functioning.