The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday granted a stay on the holding of local-body elections in the federal capital, suspending the schedule issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), 24NewsHD reported.
The stay order was issued by Justice Umair Majeed Malik, according to the report. The order suspends the election schedule announced by the commission, which had fixed polling for 20 December.
The commission had issued its order on 21 October, setting out the election programme for Islamabad’s local government polls. Under the programme, nomination papers were to be filed from 2 to 6 November, with polling on 20 December. The commission had previously assured the court that it was ready to hold the polls and that the ICT Local Government Conduct of Election Rules 2025 had been notified.
The schedule had been challenged before the high court in a petition filed on 5 November, which questioned the legality of the constituency delimitations. The petitioner, Chaudhry Amjad Ali, had sought the annulment of the commission’s order and schedule, arguing that the polls could not be held until the legal status of the existing delimitations was settled. The petition also sought suspension of the electoral process and fresh, transparent delimitation of constituencies before the election went ahead.
Islamabad’s local government bodies completed their term in February 2021, and local elections in the capital were last held in 2015. Under the Elections Act 2017, fresh elections are required within 120 days of the completion of a term, but the delimitation process has been repeatedly revised since then.
The stay means the commission cannot proceed with the election programme for now. The report did not state a date for the next hearing, and it was not immediately clear when the court would take up the matter again.
The Islamabad case comes amid a wider local-election calendar that has been moving in different directions. On 5 November, the commission halted preparations for local government elections in the remaining districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a federal order suspended Article 140A of the Constitution in the province. On the same day, it fixed 7 February 2027 for the first phase of local government elections in Punjab.
