Asad Umar, the secretary general of the PTI, Mohammad Sibtain Khan, a former speaker of the Punjab Assembly, Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani, a former speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, and Abdul Rehman and Mian Mahmoodur Rashid, two former lawmakers from Punjab, filed the petition on their behalf, claiming that the ECP’s decision violates and undercuts the Constitution.
The deteriorating security situation in the nation and a shortage of security personnel were two reasons given by the ECP for postponing the elections on March 22.
On behalf of the PTI officials, Barrister Syed Ali Zafar filed the petition on Saturday, asking the ECP to hold the elections on the original date of April 30 and ordering the federal government to provide the funds and security personnel the ECP needs.
Additionally, the governor of KP was ordered by the court to announce the date of the elections for the provincial assembly. After announcing May 28 as the election day, Governor Ghulam Ali suggested October 8 as the election date for KP.
In its petition, the PTI questioned the ECP’s constitutional amendment authority and asked how it could choose to postpone elections for any assembly for longer than the constitutionally required 90 days following the assembly’s dissolution.
The petition argued that the ECP must adhere to and implement the Supreme Court’s rulings and had no power to overrule or review them.
The petition pointed out that the Supreme Court had ordered the Punjab Assembly elections to be held within 90 days and the date to be announced by the president in its March 1 ruling.
The court had also directed the authorities to provide funds and security personnel to the ECP for the elections.
According to the petition, the ECP’s announcement of October 8 as the election date has delayed the elections by more than 183 days beyond the 90-day limit set by the Constitution.
The petition claimed that delaying the elections would result in the unelected caretaker government remaining in power, in violation of the Constitution’s provisions for temporary caretaker governments that only facilitate the transition from one government to another. It called the ECP’s justifications for the delay “flimsy, irrational, absurd and fabricated.”
The petition rejected the ECP’s argument that because the armed forces were engaged in counterterrorism operations, they were unable to provide personnel for election-related duties.
The petition argued that the federal and caretaker provincial governments, who were in charge of providing security personnel for the elections, were responsible for maintaining law and order.
The petition warned that accepting the excuse of unavailability of security personnel would set a precedent for delaying future elections.
The petition disputed the ECP’s assertion that the state of law and order made elections impossible to hold. The ECP could not rely on the federal or provincial governments to provide security or use such justifications to delay the election, it was argued, because the Constitution does not recognise such a reason as a pretext for doing so.
The petitioners were concerned that using such circumstances as justifications to disregard the Constitution would rob people of their right to choose their representatives and damage democracy.
The petition concluded by stating that postponing elections because of terrorist threats would be the same as caving in to the threats, which was the intention behind all terrorist actions.
