Pakistan: Punjab Provincial Election Set For April 30

Facts

• Pakistan's Pres. Arif Alvi announced on Friday that elections for the dissolved provincial assembly of Punjab will be held on April 30 after his decision last week to hold it on April 9 caused controversy.¹
• This came hours after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) suggested the voting be carried out between April 30 and May 7, preferably on a Sunday. Meanwhile, the election date for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) polls remains to be announced.²
• On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled 3-2 that elections for the dissolved assemblies of Punjab and KP must be conducted within 90 days and ordered Pres. Alvi and the KP governor to appoint a date after consulting the ECP.³
• These two provincial assemblies were dissolved in mid-January by Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, allegedly in a bid to bring general elections forward a few months.⁴
• Following the Supreme Court verdict, former PM Khan declared the suspension of the court arrest movement, which was organized to protest the lodging of alleged 'sham cases' against PTI leaders, and announced the party was moving forward with election campaigns.⁵
• Legal problems for Khan have been mounting since his ousting in April. After being disqualified from holding public office in October and stripped of his seat in the National Assembly, he now faces an arrest warrant for skipping a hearing.⁶

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²Dawn.com, ³Brecorder, ⁴The hindu, ⁵Pakistan today and ⁶Washington Post.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by The express tribune. The Supreme Court and the Election Commission did the right thing and followed the Constitution regarding the Punjab and KP assembly elections, despite the intense pressure from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party. Nearly a year into this political and economic crisis, the country will only find a solution through democratic elections.
• Narrative B, as provided by Dawn.com. While the Supreme Court and the Election Commission have allowed these two provincial polls to be prematurely held before the general elections, they have so far failed to provide an explanation on whether the assemblies would have to be dissolved again or not. It's evident that they have fallen into Khan's trap of dragging the country into further turmoil and legal battles to influence the outcome of the general elections.