IT appears that the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party has fallen foul of the Election Commission of Pakistan. A five-member ECP bench, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, has refused to recognise Mehmood Khan Achakzai as PkMAP chairman. The party’s last intra-party elections were held in December 2022. Under PkMAP’s constitution, the term was for three years, so fresh polls were due by December 2025, and the PkMAP failed in this regard. Fair enough. A party’s internal democracy is essential. Leaders who treat their parties as personal fiefdoms undermine the very democracy they claim to champion. PkMAP’s failure is, therefore, indefensible on its merits. Yet one cannot help but also consider the merits of the messenger. After all, the CEC’s constitutional five-year term expired on Jan 26, 2025. Does the ECP need reminding that Article 215(4) requires vacancies in the offices of CEC and ECP members to be filled within 45 days?

The 26th Amendment had allowed the incumbents to continue until a successor was appointed, but this was intended as a stop-gap measure, not a licence for indefinite tenure. However, neither the CEC nor the other members appear to have felt any moral compulsion to step aside, despite having vastly overstayed their constitutional tenure. The result is that we have an ECP being led by officials who have served well beyond their original tenure while they strictly enforce electoral calendars on political parties. And this is not to mention the many prima facie violations of rules, procedures and laws, including of the Constitution itself, that the ECP has committed. This ‘rules for thee but not for me’ policy can, therefore, not be taken seriously. Now that Mr Achakzai’s notification as Leader of the Opposition has removed one procedural hurdle to fresh appointments in the ECP, the government has no excuse for failing to initiate the consultation process. It is time it appointed fresh faces to the Commission.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2026