Pakistani President Arif Alvi has announced that elections for the
dissolved assembly of Punjab, the country’s most populous province, will be
held on April 30.
The
decision on Friday followed a proposal by the Election Commission of Pakistan
to hold the polls between April 30 and May 7, according to a statement from the
president’s office.
The announcement is expected to resolve a constitutional
crisis after Alvi last week bypassed the Election Commission by
unilaterally announcing April 9 as the election date in two provinces.
The
Supreme Court stepped in on Wednesday and ruled in
a split verdict that the elections for the provincial assemblies in Punjab and
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa must be held within 90 days of their dissolution.
toral watchdog must consult with the president to announce the
date for the Punjab polls.
For
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the judges instructed the province’s governor, Haji Ghulam
Ali, to declare a date in consultation with the commission.
The
assemblies in the two provinces were governed by the party of former Prime
Minister Imran Khan, who was removed from his post in April through a
parliamentary vote of no confidence.
Khan’s
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in January dissolved the assemblies in the
two regions, which account for about 70 percent of the country’s population.
The move was aimed at increasing pressure on the ruling alliance that replaced
Khan’s government to hold early national elections, which are scheduled for
October.
Alvi is
a senior PTI leader.
Constitutional crisis
Pakistan’s
constitution states that if an assembly is dissolved, elections must be
conducted within 90 days.
bly and provincial assemblies on the same day.
Muddasir
Rizvi, an expert on electoral matters and governance, said the matter of
setting an election date should have been resolved in the political arena
without involving the courts.
“Now
that it seems the elections will be conducted in provinces prior to general
elections for the national assembly, political parties should sit together and
initiate a broad-based dialogue on electoral reforms,” he told Al Jazeera.
Rizvi
said the dialogue should include measures to insulate the national assembly
elections from the influence of elected provincial governments in Punjab and
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“The
issue right now is that having elected governments at the helm – and not
caretaker governments – at the time of elections for the national assembly is
the major reason for discomfort,” he said. “This is a pertinent issue and can
only be addressed through a political dialogue.