ISLAMABAD: General election schedule will be announced 56 days before Feb 8, the date set for polling. “You can calculate the date yourself. It would be somewhere around Dec 14,” a senior official of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said.

According to the official, all arrangements have been made for free and fair elections after successfully completing tasks like hearing representations against delimitation and publishing the final list of constituency delimitation in time. So the ECP is now ready to announce the election schedule.

The official mentioned that the chief justices of Sindh, Lahore, and Peshawar High Courts have already refused to spare judicial officers for appointment as district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs), while a response from the Balochistan High Court is awaited.

He said the appointment of DROs and ROs is expected shortly, with district administration officers likely to take up the duties. The electoral body plans to hold a meeting next week to review election preparations and the status of implementing decisions made at the previous meeting, he added.

In a related development, an ECP spokesperson stated that Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja has invited the MQM-P for a meeting on Monday (Dec 4) to discuss and address the party’s apprehensions.

The ECP also denounced PTI leader Babar Awan’s remarks about an alleged reduction in National Assembly seats from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, calling it an attempt to create confusion.

The spokesperson clarified that, in fact, the 25th Constitutional Amendment in 2018 led to the abolition of 12 National Assembly seats in FATA after its merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the seats of the National Assembly for the province were increased from 39 to 45.

Similarly, he explained, 16 general seats have been increased from 99 to 115 in the Provincial Assembly of KP. The lawyer’s statement questioning the ECP’s authority to reduce the seats of KP is very ridiculous.

“As a lawyer, Babar Awan should not do anything outside the Constitution and the law. It is the prerogative of parliament to determine the seats of national and provincial assemblies, and according to the constitutionally allotted seats, the Election Commission has divided the constituencies,” he maintained.