By Asif Naveed
ISLAMABAD; The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced that long-delayed local government (LG) elections in Punjab will be held in the last week of December 2025, with the delimitation process beginning on Thursday and set to conclude within two months.
According to Article 140-A of the Constitution and Section 219(4) of the Elections Act, the ECP is legally required to conduct LG elections within 120 days of the expiry of local government institutions’ tenure. In April 2019, the then PTI-led Punjab government dissolved local bodies, which were later restored by the Supreme Court. Their tenure ended on December 31, 2021, making April 2022 the constitutional deadline for new elections. However, repeated amendments to the local government law by the provincial government delayed the process for more than three years.
A four-member ECP bench, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja and comprising Nisar Ahmed Durrani, Shah Muhammad Jatoi, and Babar Hassan Bharwana, issued the order to finalize the election timeline.
The commission decided to hold elections under the Punjab Local Government Act 2022 and its corresponding rules. The ECP instructed its office to complete the delimitation process within two months, after which the election schedule will be announced, ensuring polls are held in the last week of December.
“The office is expected to follow the timelines strictly,” the order stated.
The decision comes after the Punjab government failed to respond to the ECP’s earlier directive issued in June, in which the commission had granted the province three months to complete preparatory work for the elections “in the interest of justice.”
Having received no response after the lapse of three months, the ECP fixed the matter for a fresh hearing and issued a notice to the Local Government Secretary.
The bench reaffirmed that any further delay would not be tolerated and that the commission would issue the necessary orders to ensure timely elections if the provincial government fails to cooperate.
