President Arif Alvi returns ICT LG amendment bill unsigned
President Arif Alvi has returned unsigned the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2022 in terms of clause (1) (b) of Article 75 of the Constitution.
The bill was returned by observing that it would further delay the local government elections. “Actions of the federal government taken in hurry resulted in delaying election process twice, which was anathema to democracy.”
It was further stated, “Elections could not be held in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) due to the following malafide actions of the government.”a
After the completion of the delimitation of 50 Union Councils (UCs) the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced elections for local government in ICT on July 31, 2022.
Despite the announcement of the polling date, the government increased the number of UCs from 50 to 101, resulting in the postponement of elections.
After the demarcation of 101 UCs, ECP decided to hold elections in ICT on December 31, 2022. However, section 2 of the current Bill provides for 125 UCs in the ICT.
Therefore, scheduled elections have been postponed once again.
Besides this, as per section 3 of the current Bill, the mode of elections of the mayor and deputy mayor has been changed after the announcement of the schedule of elections.
