A day after a Lahore High Court order suspended a notification by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding the appointment of returning officers (RO) and district returning officers (DROs) from the bureaucracy, the election watchdog on Thursday stopped a three-day session to train ROs, only a day after its commencement.
The high court order, which came in response to a petition submitted by the PTI, has seemingly brought the electoral process to a standstill, causing widespread concern among political parties — including the petitioner PTI — regarding general elections slated for February 8 next year.
In its petition in the high court, PTI had contested the appointments of bureaucrats to act as DROs and ROs for the upcoming general elections and sought the work of officials from the lower judiciary for the poll exercise.
The watchdog was expected to announce the election schedule within this week, but now it seems to be in limbo.
An ECP official said the schedule announcement depended on the final verdict in the case related to the appointment of DROs and ROs.
“The ROs are the ones who issue public notices inviting nominations and also receive and scrutinise nomination papers. An election schedule cannot be issued in the absence of ROs,” he said. “It is the job of the ROs to implement the schedule,” the ECP official explained.