The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday put a hold on local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa until further notice, after the federal government suspended Article 140-A of the Constitution, the provision that governs local bodies in the province. The commission has stopped every step it had already taken toward the polls.
The move overturns an ECP order issued on October 28, which had directed that preparations move forward in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa districts where constituency delimitation was finished. Citing a federal order dated November 4, the commission said the suspension also reaches districts beyond those named in that order, which it said made it impossible to hold polls in the rest of the province.
Federal order leaves no constitutional basis for polls
The ECP’s meeting, chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, reviewed the federal government’s Order No-3, issued on November 4, and what it meant for the local poll process. The commission quoted the order directly. “Under Clause 2 of the federal order, Article 140-A of the Constitution has been suspended,” the ECP said.
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According to the commission, the suspension was not limited to districts already named in the federal order and applied to all districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Article 140-A deals with the setting up of local governments in the provinces, and under its sub-clause 2, holding local government elections is a constitutional duty of the ECP.
With that article suspended, the commission said, the constitutional footing for holding polls in the remaining districts was no longer there.
ECP stops all election steps across the province
The commission said it had decided to halt all steps taken so far for local government elections across the province until further orders. The decision reverses the momentum from the ECP’s order last week to press ahead in districts where delimitation had been completed.
The ruling was announced by Raja while pronouncing a reserved verdict in a case about long delays in holding local government elections in the province. Earlier, the ECP had maintained that polls could go ahead where delimitation was complete, despite concerns raised by provincial authorities over law and order and the situation after governor’s rule was imposed. It had also urged provincial authorities to clear the legal and administrative obstacles that were holding up the vote.
The federal order and the subsequent suspension have now brought the entire process to a standstill. The latest step comes amid a wider constitutional and political crisis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the federal government has imposed an emergency and governor’s rule. With every election-related measure suspended, the timetable for local government polls in the province remains uncertain.
Years of delay and a disputed delimitation process
The province’s last local government elections were held in two phases. The first took place on December 19, 2021, in 17 districts, and the second on March 31, 2022. Those polls were delayed by nearly two years following changes to provincial local government laws and related legal proceedings.
The terms of the elected local governments expired in March and June 2026, respectively, leaving the province without elected local bodies. Article 140-A requires provinces to establish local governments and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility to elected representatives. Section 219(4) of the Elections Act, 2017, requires the ECP to hold local government elections within 120 days of a term’s expiry.
In July 2026, the ECP began consultations with the provincial government to set election dates in 23 districts where delimitation had been completed, and the provincial administration pledged its cooperation. Later amendments to the provincial local government law, however, raised the population threshold for village and neighbourhood councils, complicating delimitation. The ECP said the revised thresholds conflicted with the number of councils listed in the relevant legal schedule.
The provincial government later sought to defer elections in 12 districts, citing security concerns, the emergency imposed on October 11 and the deployment of troops in certain areas. The ECP questioned why polls could not go ahead in districts where delimitation was already finished, arguing that the emergency did not automatically prevent the electoral process from continuing. Separately, the commission had empowered the district returning officer and returning officers appointed for Islamabad’s local government elections with the powers of first-class magistrates, allowing them to take legal action against election-related offences.
