LB polls in Islamabad on Nov 30

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday announced the schedule for the first-ever party-based local bodies election in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), fixing November 30 for the electoral exercise.
According to a senior ECP official, candidates would have to submit their nomination papers again.
However, those who had submitted the fee earlier do not need to submit it again.
As per the schedule, candidates may submit their nomination papers between October 24 and October 27, while scrutiny of the papers will be conducted between October 31 and November 04.
The candidates will have until November 10 to withdraw their nomination papers and on November 11, the final list of candidates will be published. Elections result will be announced by the Election Commission on December 03.
The election schedule comes a day after the Supreme Court had directed the ECP to issue a schedule for local government polls in Islamabad by Friday.
The electoral body had held out an assurance to the Supreme Court Thursday that the schedule for holding the local government polls in Islamabad will be announced on Friday.
ECP’s Additional Director General (Law) Mohammad Arshad assured the court that the schedule will be announced on Friday after Additional Attorney General (AAG) Aamir Rehman told a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Jawwad S Khawaja that the rules under which the polls were to be held had been drawn up.
President Mamnoon Hussain gave his assent to the Federal Capital Territory Local Government Bill, which the National Assembly had passed along with the amendments proposed by the Senate suggesting party-based elections for the local government in ICT on July 29. Instead of adoption of the bill cleared by the National Assembly, the Senate had recommended amendments that included holding of polls on party basis and as per rules, the National Assembly had to pass afresh the amended bill.
The last local government elections in Islamabad were held in 1992 under the Federal Capital Local Government Ordinance 1979, but those were limited to 12 rural union councils in the peripheries of Islamabad.
Earlier, on March 10, the Election Commission had proposed elections be held on July 25. It is interesting to mention here that this for the first time that elections are to be conducted in Punjab, Sindh and now in Islamabad Capital Territory at a time when there are some loud voices for resignations of four members of the Election Commission.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan was the first to immediately demand resignation of the commission members, following the release of the Inquiry Commission report on 2013 elections and then recently when an election tribunal gave its verdict in favour of the PTI.