ISLAMABAD: The local government elections scheduled to be held on October 9 in Islamabad capital territory have further been postponed.
The Election Commission of Pakistan today said that due to the recent amendments to Islamabad Local Government Act 2015, notification for polls on Oct 9 has been cancelled.
The first local government in Islamabad completed its five-year tenure in February 221. Under the law, the local government elections were to be conducted within three months after completion of the LG government’s tenure. However, on one pretext or the other, the government has been delaying these elections since then.
When the election commission had announced the schedule for conducting the elections in October, the federal government introduced a bill seeking amendments to the Islamabad local government act 215. The bill was passed by the national assembly on August 27 and later the Upper house of parliament also passed it.
In the bill, the government has proposed to increase the number of general and women seats in the Union Councils. After the increase in the number of Union Councils, under the law, there must be new delimitation of constituencies and for this purpose the election cannot be held without delimitation of constituencies afresh, which is a time taking process.
However, the opposition PTI said that the government was trying to run away from the local government elections in Islamabad as it was sure that the elections would be won by the PTI.
