QUETTA (MNN); Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Monday submitted a petition to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), requesting that the local government elections in Quetta, scheduled for December 28, be postponed.
According to informed sources, Bugti argued in his petition that the fragile law and order situation in the provincial capital, along with ongoing internet suspensions, made it unsuitable to hold the Quetta Metropolitan Corporation (QMC) elections at this time. He also noted that a significant number of citizens had moved away due to winter, which would impact voter turnout.
The Balochistan government had previously asked the ECP to delay the elections on similar grounds, but the request had been rejected.
Sources added that local government elections in other districts of Balochistan were held three years ago, and those councils still have nine months left in their term.
Despite the concerns, the ECP had completed its preparations for the Quetta elections, and ballot papers were already being printed.
Earlier, on October 6, a bench of the Balochistan High Court (BHC) dismissed multiple constitutional petitions seeking postponement of the polls and instructed the provincial election commissioner to conduct the elections at the earliest.
Following the BHC’s directives, the ECP began preparations and issued the election schedule on November 13.
The polls are set to take place in 172 union councils and 641 wards of Quetta, with 2,710 candidates in the running.
The last local bodies elected in 2015 completed their term on January 27, 2019. Under the Elections Act 2017, fresh local government elections are required within 120 days of a term’s expiry. However, the polls were eventually held in May 2022—over three years late.
This delay stemmed from political disagreements over proposed changes to the Balochistan Local Government Act (BLGA) 2010 and disputes regarding constituency delimitation. Local government elections in major urban districts such as Quetta and Lasbela were postponed due to delimitation-related issues. While elections in Lasbela were held at the end of 2022, Quetta’s polls remained pending because of ongoing litigation in the BHC concerning its ward boundaries.
