ISLAMABAD: Delimitation of the constituencies for holding local government elections in the Islamabad capital territory (ICT) will get underway on April 1, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced on Friday.

Delimitation officers of the ECP will acquire maps and population and union councils’ data for the purpose by March 30 and the whole exercise will be completed with the notification of the delimited constituencies on May 30.

While the schedule came the day after the National Assembly passed a bill for partyless local elections in the ICT, the ECP issued it “pursuant to the orders the Supreme Court passed on March 10, 2015” on a constitution petition filed in 2010.

Meanwhile, to become law, the bill needs to be passed also by the opposition-dominated Senate where its partyless character is likely to be challenged.

A preliminary list of the delimited constituencies will be published and displayed on May 1, according to the ECP.

Objections and representations to them will be accepted till May 15, to be disposed of between May 16 and May 22 and the final list notified on May 30.

Local government polls in Islamabad have been set for July 25.

Local government elections have been held in Islamabad in 1980, 1983, 1987 and 1992 but only in its rural areas. These had followed the declaration of the federal capital territory as a district in 1980 by the then military ruler Gen Ziaul Haq who restricted the local representation to rural union councils.

In the 1992 LG polls, 12 union councils elected their representatives for a four-year term. These included Bhara Kahu, Phulgaran, Tumair, Charah, Kirpa, Sihala, Koral, Rawat, Sohan, Tarlai and Shah Allah Ditta.

It will be for the first time this July that both the rural and urban populations of Islamabad will be choosing their representatives to the local government.

Under the bill passed by the National Assembly on Friday, five-year term local governments in Islamabad will consist of a metropolitan corporation and union councils.

Each union council will consist of a chairman, a vice chairman, six general members, two women, one peasant or worker, one youth member and one Non-Muslim. And joint candidates will contest the posts of chairman and vice chairman.

Likewise the posts of mayor and deputy mayor in the metropolitan corporation will be contested by joint candidates. Besides the two, the corporation will comprise chairmen of all union councils and members representing women, peasants and workers, technocrats, youth and non-Muslims.

It will be for the government to determine the number of the latter members, through notifications issued from time to time.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2015

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