A day after the Lahore High Court suspended the appointment of returning officers, multiple analysts said that a delay in elections has almost become certain.

Speaking in Faisla Aap Ka on Aaj News, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said the decision was an important development and would have a direct impact on the date of elections.

He said that the ECP would not be able to announce the schedule while the petition was still being heard as returning officers were needed to accept nomination papers.

He added that the process of filing papers has to be completed within six days of issuing schedule.

Mehboob said that if the Supreme Court does not act on Friday, a delay in the election date would be inevitable.

He said that Ali Zafar’s statement made it seem like he had not been consulted as he did not sound in favour of an election delay.

Fahd Hussain said that recent weeks had made it seem that elections would go ahead as per schedule. He added that the February 8 date was already delayed but had seemed fixed becuase the Supreme Court had fixed it.

He added that since a court decision had created the new situation, the matter of elections could be going into uncharted territory.

Mazhar Abbas said that the whole matter seemed a game of fine margins to him. He said that the decision had been issued late at night.

He also said that it was worth exploring why the ECP had opted to hold an election under the supervision of the aadministration. He said one apsect was that the judiciary had refused to officiate the election.

Abbas said that the PTI’s decision was a huge political mistake. He said that the PTI should have addressed a press conference to express a lack of confidence in the administration.

He added that elections in the country had been held under both the judiciary and the administration but had been controversial in both instances.

Abbas questioned why the LHC had not kept a possible delay in elections in mind while making the decisions. He added that PTI had provided an excuse for elections being delayed and the party should look at how such a situation had emerged.

Ajmal Jami said that he had become aware that a delay could be on the cards after Asif Zardari’s recent statement as he rarely made a statement without cause.

He added that all things considered together, a delay in elections was very much on the cards.

Fahd Hussain added that if Zardari and Maulana Fazal ur Rehman’s statements were considered linked to the judgement, it would point to a ‘grand national plan’ to delay elections and he hoped it would not be the case.

He said he hoped that the two politicians were simply thingking out loud instead.

Abbas said that it was almost certain that elections would be delayed but it was a question of how long the delay would be.

He also said that elections to the Senate had to be conducted in March so a long delay would consider further complications.

He said that the PTI should review why the petition was needed in the first place.

Hussain said that the ability to control events in Pakistan is sometimes overestimated. He said that some things just ‘happen’ in Pakistan and it might not be accurate to say that things had been planned all along.

He said that there could be both planning and incompetency involved but it was hard to believe there was a system-wide conspiracy. He added that it would be important to see what would be done by people who have the power to fix things in the next 48 hours.