LAHORE: Though Punjab has promulgated an ordinance to remove hurdles to election of mayors and nazims and on reserved seats in the local councils, the process will actually restart only after the nomination of the members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

“We have informed the ECP about the removal of the hurdles through the ordinance promulgated on Thursday. But we have been told that the process will be restarted only after the completion of the ECP,” a Punjab government senior official told Dawn on Friday.

The election process was stalled after the provincial government, through an amendment to the Local Government Act 2013, had provided that elections to the reserved local seats would be held on a proportionate representation basis and for the nazims and mayors through open division of the house.

The amendments were made through an ordinance when the ECP had already announced the election schedule. They were nevertheless challenged before the Lahore High Court.

Local elections in Sindh too were stalled after an amendment to the Sindh local government (LG) law, allowing election of Karachi mayor and deputy mayors through show of hands. It was also challenged in the Sindh High Court.

The high court decided against the amendment. But its verdict was again challenged in the Supreme Court of Pakistan which upheld it on April 15.

Officials in the Punjab government said the supreme court had declared the amendments void on the ground that they could not be made after the announcement of the election schedule.

“Since we too had made the amendments after the announcement of the election schedule, the supreme court decision also applies to us. Therefore, we have withdrawn our amendments,” an official said.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2016