ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan has allowed voters to register their votes from Islamabad. They have also been allowed to make corrections, transfer and change in the voters lists.

Sources said electoral rolls of Islamabad, in accordance with section 39 of Election Act 2017, were freezed on January 14, a month before completion of the five-year term of Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI).

However, they said that recently on April 9, ECP removed the said bar through section 49 of Election Act till the issuance of a new election schedule. “Now, people can register themselves as new voters and there is no bar anymore on transfer of votes, changes in electoral rolls and correction etc.,” said an official of ECP.

As per rule, the ECP is bound to hold elections within six months before August 15. However, it seems that local government elections in the capital city will be delayed as before issuing the election schedule, ECP needs to do new delimitation.

Sources in ECP said in house arrangements, a pre-requisite for delimitation such as maps and administrative measures, are finalised but the commission cannot initiate the process of delimitation until the government releases the data of National Census conducted in 2017.

The first-ever local government elections in Islamabad were held in November 2015 during the tenure of PML-N government. The then ruling party won majority seats that led to the victory of Sheikh Anser Aziz as mayor and three others as deputy mayors. However, Mr Aziz and his team, sources said, were not able to perform their tasks well due to incompetence coupled with non-cooperation from their own federal government.

Later on after the 2018 elections, PTI ignored the MCI which resulted in completion of the five-year tenure of local government representatives without them getting honorarium. A few months before the completion of tenure, in October last year Mr Aziz himself surrendered several key directorates of MCI to Capital Development Authority (CDA) including park directorates, water supply, sewerage development, street lights and so on.

After taking control of the said directorates, CDA spent millions of rupees for road repair and carpeting, improving parks and water supply network and bringing significant improvement.

“The local government is a nursery of the democratic system and it is the best system in place globally, to resolve issues of the community at their doorstep, but unfortunately here in Islamabad during the last five years, due to the incompetency of political parties, bureaucracy and local government representatives, the MCI failed to deliver and we could not get any benefit from this system,” said Daood Ali, resident of G7. He said new elections should be held without any delay so we can see an empowered MCI.

Sources in the government said the draft of a new act is being finalised. Recently, ruling party’s MNAs from Islamabad Ali Nawaz Awan and Raja Khurram Nawaz, who before becoming MNAs were part of MCI, told Dawn that efforts are afoot towards making a new Local Government Act to hold elections in Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2021