It became public on Monday that the next general elections might not happen as planned because the Ministry of Finance has not released funds to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) despite multiple reminders. The ECP has summoned the finance secretary and written to the prime minister about the situation.
Even though the Supreme Court said it wasn’t okay to talk about delaying the elections on February 8, 2019, it was revealed today that the ECP called the finance secretary to the commission to find out why the money wasn’t released when it was supposed to be in the budget.
An anonymous ECP source told The Express Tribune, “The finance ministry has not released funds for the general elections. That is why the finance secretary has been called before the commission today (Monday).”
According to sources in the ECP, this year’s budget set aside a total of Rs42 billion for having general elections. However, the finance ministry has only released Rs10 billion so far. They also said that the rest of the money had been delayed without any reason.
Officials from the ECP said that the poll body needs Rs17 billion right away in order to hold general elections on February 8, 2024. They said that the finance office was asked to release the money many times, but nothing was done.
The officials also said that a letter had been sent to the finance ministry, but that the commission had not yet heard back from the ministry in a “positive” way. This is why they had to call the secretary.
After that, sources in the ECP said, “Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja has decided to let the prime minister know what’s going on,” and they added, “A letter will be sent to the prime minister today about this.”
It is important to note that this is not the first time that a conversation has been started about perhaps delaying the general elections. Since the assembly was dissolved by the former government three days before the end of its five-year term, the issue has been in the news many times.
In the past, the polls were held later than planned because of a lack of money and safety concerns. The general elections have already been pushed back past the 90-day constitutional deadline, and now it looks like they will be pushed back even further because the needed funds have not been released yet.
It may come as a surprise, but the country has not only had to wait 90 days for the general elections, but polls have already been held in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
It all began when the former leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chose in January of this year to get rid of PTI governments in both provinces. What the PTI thought would happen was that the move would force the coalition government in the center, which was run by the PMLN at the time, to call early elections. However, that did not happen.
In the end, the case was brought before the SC. But the case is still open because the interim governments have been in charge for longer than the three months allowed by the law.
Among other things, the fight between the ECP and President Arif Alvi added to the drama surrounding the polls. Both sides believed it was their right to announce the date of the polls.
The high court had to step in again and tell the ECP to meet with the president and give him the election date. After this, the date of February 8 was made public.
