Pakistan top court orders polls in two provinces within 90 days
Supreme Court says elections for provincial assemblies in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa must be held within three months.
Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ruled that elections for the provincial assemblies in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa must be held within 90 days.
The five-member top court bench, led by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, on Wednesday gave a split 3-2 decision.
The assemblies in the two provinces were controlled by former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. In January, Khan, in a bid to force early elections, asked the provincial governors to dissolve the two assemblies.
Pakistan traditionally holds the provincial and national elections together. The general polls are due by October this year.
According to Pakistan’s constitution, elections must be held within 90 days after the dissolution of a provincial assembly.
On February 21, President Arif Alvi, who is from the PTI, unilaterally announced April 9 as the election date in the two provinces, creating a constitutional crisis, with experts wondering if he had the right to do so.
The top court took a suo moto notice of the president’s announcement to determine which government institution had the constitutional responsibility of deciding the poll dates.
