‘Anathema to democracy,’ says President as he returns a bill requesting a rise in Islamabad’s UCs.

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Sunday returned the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2022, that suggested an increase in the number of union councils (UCs) in the federal capital unsigned as it was a “anathema to democracy”.

The president has returned the measure in line of clause (1) (b) of Article 75 of the Constitution with the statement that it would “further postpone the local government elections”.

The Bill was returned by observing that it would further delay the Local Government elections. “Actions of the Federal Government taken in hurry resulted in delaying election process twice, which was anathema to democracy”.
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— The President of Pakistan (@PresOfPakistan) January 1, 2023

The president also noted that local government elections in Islamabad were postponed owing to “malafide measures” by the federal government.

After completing the delimitation of 50 UCs, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) declared the local elections for July 31, last year. He said that the election had to be postponed since the federal government raised the number of UCs from 50 to 101.

Dr. Alvi added that once the demarcation was completed and the ECP declared elections for December 31, the current law increased the number of UCs to 125, resulting in yet another delay. He further said that, after the release of the election date, the manner of elections for the mayor and deputy mayor was amended through the law.

Dispute about the bill
The ECP had originally planned the local government elections in Islamabad on July 31 of last year.

However, the Islamabad High Court ordered the ECP to postpone the elections to redistrict the seats.

Once the procedure was completed, ECP declared that the elections will be held on December 31, 2022.

However, on December 22, 2022, the National Assembly enacted the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2022, despite opposition members’ protests and calls for a quorum in the House.

The measure expanded the number of UCs in Washington, DC from 101 to 125.

The law was approved by the Senate the following day and was awaiting confirmation by the president, which has since been refused.

The ECP had rejected the bill and said that the election will go on as planned.

Interestingly, before the law was passed by the president, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) contested it in the Islamabad High Court (PTI).

While hearing the petitions, IHC placed the ball in ECP’s court, requesting that it hear all parties before making a judgement. It then stated that the elections will be postponed.

In response, the PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) petitioned the IHC seeking a reversal of the ECP ruling.

While hearing the petitions, IHC overturned ECP’s ruling on December 30 and instructed the organisation to run local government elections as scheduled on December 31.

As a consequence, residents who came out to vote in Islamabad’s local government elections launched demonstrations after seeing all of the authorised ECP polling locations shuttered and the employees absent.

Following this event, the federal government and the ECP filed a petition with the IHC the day before. While the PTI has petitioned the IHC for contempt of court proceedings against the Centre and ECP.