President Asif Ali Zardari signed into law on Thursday the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2024 as the LG elections scheduled for October 9 seem uncertain.

The amendment aims to revise the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Act of 2015. The president granted approval to the bill under Article 75 (president’s assent to bills) of the Constitution.

The much-delayed local government election in Islamabad is set to be held on October 9 after it was extended by 10 days.

The term of the ICT local bodies expired on February 14, 2021, and the term of the Punjab local bodies expired on December 31, 2021. However, the ECP failed to hold the LG elections within the stipulated 120-day period.

Under the new act, each union council in Islamabad will consist of nine general wards, with voters casting ballots only for candidates in such wards.

The amendment also stipulates that members from nine wards would be elected, including representatives for women, youth, minorities, labourers, and farmers. In the final phase, the 13 members of the union council would elect a chairman and vice chairman.

At the UC level, a total of 15 representatives would be elected through voting. The text of the bill suggests that increasing the number of local representatives at the UC level would lead to a better transfer of powers to the grassroots level, as more elected officials would be in direct contact with the people.

The bill also mentions that the general seat candidates would be directly elected while the general council candidates would be elected through secret ballot. After the completion of the electoral process, the UC secretary would convene a meeting where the election of the chairman and vice chairman would take place under the secretary’s chairmanship.

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NA passes Islamabad Local Government Amendment Bill

“The brief facts leading to amendment in Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Act, 2015 are that Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Act was promulgated in 2015 to establish an elected Local Government System. The term of Local Government of ICT expired on 14.02.2021 and the Federal Government and the Election Commission are obligated to conduct the elections within 120 days in terms of Section 219 (4) of the Elections Act, 2017,” it stated.

“In order to complete necessary arrangements for conduct of Local Government Elections in Islamabad, the ECP asked for issuance of notification regarding number of reserved seats of Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) and amendment in Section-17 of the ICT Local Government Act, 2015 to the effect that ‘the Representation of the People Act, 1976’ should be replaced with ‘Elections Act, 2017’,” it added.