The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday notified that the general elections in the provincial assembly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be held on October 8, 2023. According to ECP, the date of the poll has been conveyed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Governor Ghulam Ali in compliance with orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in Suo Moto case no 1 of 2023, Constitutional Petition no 1&2 of 2023. The Supreme Court on March 1 had ruled that elections in KP and Punjab should be held within 90 days, after the dissolution of provincial assemblies in January, or on a date that “deviates to the barest minimum” from the constitutional deadline.
The KP governor, in his fourth letter to the ECP – seen by Dawn – had invited the commission’s attention to several militant attacks.
The governor wrote that since the ECP had lately postponed elections in Punjab and announced Oct 8 as the new date, the same date was proposed for holding elections in KP in the larger public interest.
Claiming that the apex court’s orders would be fully implemented, he had said he desired free, fair and peaceful polls in the province, but residents of tribal districts were protesting against the conduct of general elections before the announcement of new census results, he added.
According to the KP governor, the security situation in the province was completely different from that of Punjab. “I have shared my opinion with the ECP and the rest is ECP’s job,” he had said, adding that the commission was a constitutional body.
