Pakistan’s Supreme Court building in Islamabad on April 6, 2022. AKHTAR SOOMRO / REUTERS
Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the holding of elections in the country’s most populous province of Punjab in May, a decision immediately welcomed by the opposition led by former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Pakistan has been in the grip of a serious political crisis since Imran Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 by a motion of no confidence and replaced by a fragile coalition government, led by Shehbaz Sharif.
Degradation of security
Always very popular, the former cricket champion has since continued to maintain pressure on his successor to obtain that the legislative elections take place well before the deadline of October 2023, the government seeking on the contrary to delay them as much as possible. . Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, Pakistan Justice Movement), dissolved the two provincial assemblies it controlled in January in Punjab (central east) and Khyber. Pakhtunkhwa (north-west).
The Constitution requires that elections be held within three months of the dissolution of a provincial assembly. But the Electoral Commission (ECP), citing financial reasons and the deterioration of security in the country, had decided to postpone these elections to October, to make them coincide with the legislative elections, the date of which has not yet been announced.
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The Supreme Court, which had self-seized of this file, however estimated Tuesday that the postponement of the poll in Punjab was “unconstitutional, without authority or legal basis“. “Neither the Constitution nor the law gives the Commission the power to postpone the date of elections beyond 90 days.“, she ruled in a judgment consulted by AFP.
“Victory” for the former Prime Minister
The Court ordered the government to release the necessary funds for the organization of the poll in Punjab, which should be held on May 14. She also asked the PTI to send her a request to also decide on the date of the elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Fawad Chaudhry, a senior PTI official, called the judgment “big winfor Imran Khan.
Entangled in a multitude of legal cases, Imran Khan claims to be at the center of a plot to prevent him from running for the legislative elections. In mid-March, police sought to arrest him at his home, sparking clashes with PTI supporters. A court eventually ordered law enforcement to stand down, and the arrest warrant issued against him in the case was later lifted. In November, he was shot and wounded during a political rally, an assassination attempt he blamed on his successor.