ISLAMABAD:President Dr. Arif Alvi has returned the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2022 unsigned in terms of clause (1) (b) of Article 75 of the Constitution.
The Bill was returned by observing that it would further delay the Local Government elections. “Actions of the Federal Government taken in hurry on resulted in delaying election process twice, which was anathema to democracy,” President Secretariat Press Wing in a press release on Sunday quoted the president as saying.
It was further stated, “elections could not be held in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) due to the following malafide actions of Federal Government.
After the completion of the delimitation of 50 Union Councils, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced elections for Local Government in ICT on 31st July 2022. Despite the announcement of the polling date, Federal Government increased the number of Union Councils from 50 to 101, resulting in the postponement of elections.
After the demarcation of 101 Union Councils, ECP decided to hold elections in ICT on 31st December 2022. ii) Section 2 of the current Bill provides for 125 Union Councils in the ICT. Therefore, elections scheduled for 31st December 2022 have been again postponed. iii) As per Section 3 of the current Bill, the mode of elections of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor has been changed after the announcement of the schedule of elections”