The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on Friday “strongly condemned” the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to conduct fresh delimitation and “delay elections” beyond the constitutional limit of 90 days. In a press release on Friday, PBC Vice Chairman Haroon-ur-Rashid and Executive Committee Chairman Hassan Raza Pasha expressed “grave concerns” over the ECP decision.
They said the “delimitation schedule of redrawing constituencies, issued by the commission, is a tactic to delay polls” and expressed that Article 224 of the Constitution bound the ECP to conduct general elections within 90 days of the dissolution of assemblies. The PBC stressed that it was the ECP’s duty “to conduct free, fair and transparent elections within the stipulated period as mandated by the Constitution”. The press release added that free and fair elections were the only way out from the current “worse economic condition of the country”.
