After mjuch dilly dallying ECP has announced by-elections on another 31 seats of the National Assembly on March 19, it said on Friday, weeks after de-notifying dozens of lawmakers of former prime minister Imran Khan’s party.
The announcement followed a surprise move by Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf, a close ally of PM Shehbaz Sharif, in which he accepted long pending resignations of PTI lawmakers, after which the ECP de-notified them.
Khan’s party had quit the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan parliament, after he was driven out of power last April in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, but Speaker Ashraf did not accept the resignations at the time and said he needed to individually verify if the lawmakers were resigning of their own accord.
“In pursuance of Section 57 of the Elections Act… the Election Commission hereby calls upon the electors of the under-mentioned constituencies of National Assembly of Pakistan, which have become vacant due to resignations,” the election regulator said in a notification on Friday.
