The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) kept all of its polling places in the nation’s capital sealed as voters arrived at their designated polling places to cast their votes in the Islamabad local government elections on Saturday morning.
Voters protested outside the polling stations while in line after seeing the shuttered offices and the staff’s absence.
The IHC ordered the electoral body to hold the elections by the timetable on Friday after admitting the petitions submitted by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) seeking to overturn the ECP’s decision to postpone the LG elections.
A change in the union councils of the capital area caused the ECP to postpone the local government elections scheduled for the federal capital’s federal capital on December 31.
The federal government was urged to make sure that “it aids the election commission in holding the local government polls” by the high court in its one-page brief order.
The order further said that both the December 27 notification from the election commission and the December 19 notification from the Ministry of the Interior had been declared invalid.
