Polls on order

It is unfortunate that it has taken an order from the apex court to lay down a schedule for local bodies polls in the country, but fortunate that we now have a date for this important part of the electoral exercise to be completed. After months of issuing orders and warnings of contempt action, the three-member bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday set September 2015 as the date when the exercise must take place and all stages completed within the year. The court set the date after rejecting a schedule from the Election Commission of Pakistan and the attorney general under which polls were planned phase by phase in the Punjab and Sindh beginning in January 2016. That schedule had been placed before the judges on Wednesday night, after the bench ordered officials to table one by this time. Like many ordinary people in the country, the court has been increasingly impatient over the failure by the Punjab and Sindh to move ahead with LB polls.
There is good reason for this annoyance. The constitution lays down that LB polls are to be held every five years. The failure to comply with this amounts to flouting the law of the land. It also means people have been deprived of local level governance. Ironically, while Balochistan has already completed the LB process and KP plans to do the same within months, the more powerful provinces in the country have consistently held back from doing so. On Wednesday the SC rejected arguments from the attorney general and the ECP that preparations for LB polls required new delimitations, the printing of ballot papers and the registration of four million new voters in the two provinces - and would therefore require time. The bench noted there had been too long a delay anyway, making urgency imperative. It also ordered elections in the Islamabad Capital Territory under new legislation that has been drafted for this purpose. We hope that with the court having made its plans clear, we will see progress towards holding the LB polls everywhere in the country. The ECP, which is primarily responsible for the conduct of the polls, will undoubtedly face a testing time, especially as discord over the polls among political parties exists. The focus now must be on ensuring this mammoth exercise is properly conducted. It is vital that the ECP receive the support of provincial governments as well as other officials for this to happen, so that, after an interval that has lasted way too long, people can exercise power as envisaged under the devolution plan. We need our system of local government to be running smoothly if the problems of these people are to be solved, and with the court laying out the path ahead we must hope there will be no further disruptions or delays.