ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Defence (MoD) has sought approval of the federal government to hold local government elections in 42x cantonment boards (CB) across the country, official sources told Business Recorder.
Sharing the details, sources said local government elections in 42x CBs were held in 2019; in Nov 2019, Election Commission of Pakistan conveyed that Dec 9, 2019 would be the date of expiry of the term of local government elections 2015, of all CBs across the country. In pursuance Section 219(4) of the Elections Act 2017, ECP had to conduct the LG elections within 120 days of the expiry of CBs’ term.
However, elections were not conducted because of ongoing delimitation process in respect of 42x country and Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, a summary for varying the constitution of boards throughout the country to act as a caretaker setup or facilitation and holding of upcoming local government elections in cantonments in fair and transparent manner was approved by the federal cabinet.
As per the sub-section (2) of Section 58 of the Cantonments (Amendment) Act, 2015 : “The Election Commission shall, on receipt of a request in writing from the Federal Government, issue a programme elections in the Cantonment Boards and shall fix the dates for filing of nomination papers ,scrutiny, allotment of symbols and poll, etc.” The Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench in its order of Nov 25, 2020 in writ petition No. 2147 of 2020 directed compliance regarding the written request to ECP by the federal government for conduct of local government elections in the cantonment boards.
In pursuance of LHC Rawalpindi bench judgment, a draft summary for the cabinet was shared with ECP and National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) for views / comments, ECP in its letter of December 23, 2020, noted that it has been mandated to conducted local government elections and the matter regarding placement of summary before the federal cabinet for conducting LG elections in cantonment boards is an internal matter between the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Division.
Further, on receipt of a written request from the federal government in terms of Section-58(2) of the Cantonment Ordinance, 2002, ECP will take necessary action in accordance with the relevant provisions of law accordingly. More so, ECP in its letter of Dec 22, informed that it has also issued the schedule for by-elections in various constituencies of National and provincial assemblies and cannot delay the holding of election in cantonment boards for want of a reason and requested to send a written request as required under Section 58(2) of the Cantonment Ordinance 2002 so that ECP could announce the elections schedule accordingly.
In this regard, a meeting was also held at ECP on December 30, 2020 during which ECP informed that local government elections in CBs will be held as per scheduled date to be decided by the federal government. The election commissioner stressed upon moving the summary to the federal government as early as possible and also directed that efforts be made to convey approval of the federal government to ECP within fifteen days.
On the other hand, NCOC has recommended postponement of all types of elections till Jan 31. The review to this effect to decide conducive time/date will be held during last week of Jan 2021.
After explaining the background, Secretary Defence Lt-Gen Mian Hilal Hussain (retd) has sought approval of the cabinet to allow Ministry of Defence to forward a written request to the ECP for issuance of programme for conducting elections in all the cantonment boards of the country and to fix the dates for filing of nomination papers, scrutiny, allotment of symbols and polls etc.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021