After months of dead air and no movement on key electoral appointments, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif extended a branch of Olivier on Wednesday to the Omar Ayub National Assembly, inviting him to consultations on the appointment of a new commissioner in the elections (CEC). In a letter, the Prime Minister said that the term CEC, as well as that of two other ECP members, ended on January 26. However, all three continued their functions under article 215 of the Constitution. He said that, according to article 218, the proposals for the CEC and its members were to be submitted to the parliamentary committee. The letter comes as the constitutional logjam has been purged since January, while the five -year mandates of the Sultan Raja of CEC Sikandar, of the Sindh member, Nisar Durrani and Balochistan, Shah Muhammad Jatoi, ended on January 26. The process, clearly established in article 213, requires a consensus between the Prime Minister and the opposition chief. In the event of agreement, the two parties are supposed to send separate lists of three names to a bipartite committee of 12 members, which would then choose one and send it to the president for official appointment. However, the process has gathered dust. Although the CEC seats and two members expired in January, the government authorized the 45 -day constitutional deadline for new appointments, which triggered on March 12, to come without resolution. The dead end is now based at the foot of the treasure and the opposition, neither of the two sides being serious contact to the PM letter. On the other hand, Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf (PTI) has already traced the government in court in March. A petition deposited before the High Court of Islamabad by the Ayub and the head of the opposition of the Senate, Shibli Faraz, lambast the inaction as a constitutional violation. He appoints the federal government, the president of the Senate, the speaker of the National Assembly and the PCE as respondents. The petition urges the court to oblige the speaker of the National Assembly to constitute the required parliamentary committee and calls on the president of the Senate to provide names of senators for the same. He also asked the court to order the Prime Minister to hold significant consultations with AYUB, as required by article 213, and to declare the continuous presence of the CEC and two expired as illegal members. Constitutional experts highlight the 26th amendment, which modified article 215 (4) to allow office holders to continue "Until the successors are named". The opposition and observers allege that the amendment is a legislative patch against executive indecision, in particular when the main positions intended to ensure that fair elections remain in limbo. Of the four members of the ECP, only representatives of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – Babar Hassan Bharwana and Justice (Retd) Ikramullah Khan – still have valid mandates, both extending to the middle of 2027. It should be noted that the mandate of Cec Sikandar Sultan Raja was full of fields of political mine. The opposition parties, in particular the PTI, accused it of everything, of the electoral mismanagement at the opening of partisanary. It was criticized for having omitted to guarantee general elections in a timely manner and to have stripped the PTI of its emblematic symbol of “bat” before the 2024 surveys. The ECP was also criticized for having omitted to implement the verdict of the Supreme Court on the reserved seats and not to have organized the elections in the Senate in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, denounced by criticisms as undergoing federal parliamentary integrity.
PM written to OPP to confer the new CEC
