The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has postponed the upcoming by-elections in five National Assembly seats and four provincial assembly seats in Punjab amid the flooding crisis in the province.

The by-elections were supposed to be held in the following constituencies: NA-66 (Wazirabad), NA-96 (Faisalabad-II), NA-104 (Faisalabad-X), NA-129 (Lahore-XIII), NA-143 (Sahiwal-III), PP-73 (Sargodha-III), PP-87 (Mianwali-III), PP-98 (Faisalabad-I) and PP-203 (Sahiwal-VI).

The ECP said that the communication system in the province was badly disrupted due to the “unprecedented floods”, along with a lot of other damage to connectivity and public infrastructure.

It noted that rescue and relief operations were also underway with various civil administration and law enforcement agencies engaged in evacuations and aid delivery, adding that officials had also informed it of the non-availability of polling staff.

The ECP said the provincial government had requested it to postpone the polls.

“The commission by taking into consideration the issues highlighted herein above has come to the conclusion that due to non-availability of polling staff, requisite number of law-enforcing personnel, damage of infrastructure, disenfranchisement of voters due to displacement, election cannot be ensured with the optimum level of security as mandated under Article 218(3) of the Constitution.”

It said it was postpoing the by-elections in the above nine constituencies and it would resume the process once the situation normalised.