LAHORE: The Punjab government on Monday told the Lahore High Court (LHC) that the local government (LG) elections in the province would be held on a “party basis”.
An assistant advocate general (AAG) shared this information about LG elections — which have been delayed for long and are not expected to be held before the second quarter of next year — during a hearing of petitions filed by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)-backed lawmaker Sheikh Imtiaz and others, who have challenged the Punjab Local Government Act 2025 (PLGA).
Contrary to the AAG’s claim, the local government law enacted in October states that the elections are to be held on a non-party basis.
But, the AAG submitted a report on behalf of the local government secretary today, which said that any political party wishing to contest the LG polls “may allow its candidates to contest elections for any political office on its ticket”.
“Section 55 of the PLGA does not, in any manner, put any party at a disadvantage compared to others,” he said.
At that, LHC Justice Sultan Tanvir Ahmad asked whether the petitioners’ grievances had been addressed as the government itself was saying that the LG elections would be party-based.
In this regard, the petitioner’s lawyer said that if that was the case, “then our concern to the extent of one point stands resolved”.
He requested that the government’s reply be made part of the record.
Justice Ahmad also heard Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Director General (Law) Khurram Shahzad, who said the ECP was a constitutional body “ready to fulfil its duties”.
“The commission had written nearly 80 letters to the government over the past four years regarding holding local government elections and will conduct polls under whatever law the government enacted,” he maintained.
“The Punjab government had given a January 10 deadline for election preparations,” the ECP official added.
At one point, Justice Ahmad questioned why the Punjab advocate general’s office had not submitted a formal reply to the petitions challenging the local government law. He directed the advocate general to submit a reply by Tuesday.
“Certain provisions of the impugned act appear to be inconsistent with the Constitution,” the judge further observed.
He also commented that the matter needed to be decided “promptly”.
The PLGA 2025 was steamrolled from the Punjab Assembly in a matter of just five days, only after the ECP’s strong intervention and announcement to hold local government elections under the PLGA 2022 in the last week of December.
LG elections in Punjab have been delayed for long and the matter goes back to 2019. In April that year, the then PTI-led Punjab government had dissolved the local government institutions, which were later restored by the Supreme Court and subsequently completed their term on December 31, 2021.
Under Article 140-A of the Constitution and Section 219(4) of the Elections Act, the ECP is bound to hold elections within 120 days of the expiry of the term of the local government institutions.
This meant that LG elections in Punjab were supposed to be held by the end of April 2022, but it could not be made possible as the provincial government kept on amending the LG law from time to time.
This year, on Oct 8, the ECP ordered LG polls in December and asked Punjab to immediately start the delimitation exercise and complete the same within two months.
This order, however, was reversed in a meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja on Oct 21, in light of the new law, after a request by the Punjab government.
The ECP withdrew its original delimitation schedule for the elections issued under the 2022 local government law, giving the provincial government four weeks to finalise the delimitation and demarcation rules.
On October 31, the ECP said local government elections in Punjab would not be possible before the second quarter of next year as the commission would not have all the prerequisites to hold the electoral exercise during the current year.
The prerequisites are scheduled to be in place by January 10, 2026, following which the ECP would begin the delimitation process.
For its part, the opposition PTI said the new LG law was a sheer violation of Article 140 of the Constitution and decided to challenge the law in the court.
Article 140 says, “Each province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments”.
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