ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has notified October 8 as the date for provincial elections for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, it emerged on Wednesday.
The ECP notification was dated March 27 and said the election programme would be issued in a due course of time. This is the same date to which the ECP postponed the general elections for the Punjab Assembly.
Taking a cue from the ECP move, KP Governor Ghulam Ali on Friday had proposed the same date for the holding of elections in his province as well.
The Supreme Court on March 1 had ruled that elections in KP and Punjab should be held within 90 days, after the dissolution of provincial assemblies in January, or on a date that “deviates to the barest minimum” from the constitutional deadline.
The KP governor, in his fourth letter to the ECP had invited the commission’s attention to several militant attacks.
The governor wrote that since the ECP had lately postponed elections in Punjab and announced Oct 8 as the new date, the same date was proposed for holding elections in KP in the larger public interest.
Claiming that the apex court’s orders would be fully implemented, he had said he desired free, fair and peaceful polls in the province, but residents of tribal districts were protesting against the conduct of general elections before the announcement of new census results, he added.
According to the KP governor, the security situation in the province was completely different from that of Punjab. “I have shared my opinion with the ECP and the rest is ECP’s job,” he had said, adding that the commission was a constitutional body.
