General elections in Pakistan will be conducted in the final week of January 2024, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) declared on Thursday.

The ECP did not provide a date for the elections to take place in the timeline they released today. Additionally, it is more than two months later than the Nov. 6 deadline that President Arif Alvi proposed.

The electoral commission stated in a statement that after reviewing the work done on constituency delimitation, it was determined that the first set of lists for constituency delimitation will be issued on September 27.

The commission said that the entire list would be released on November 30 following the hearing of concerns and ideas regarding the exercise. It stated that after a 54-day election campaign, voting will take place in the final week of January.

The declaration comes in response to the ECP’s yesterday’s statement, which suggested arranging a conference with political parties to discuss the general elections’ code of conduct for next month.

The ECP said that it had given a draft code of conduct to political parties in order to get their feedback before establishing the final standards.

According to the draft code, political parties, candidates running for office, and election workers are not allowed to spread ideas that are harmful to Pakistan’s ideology, its sovereignty, integrity, or security, its morality or public order, its judiciary’s independence or independence, or that dismiss or make fun of any government institution, including the judicial system and the armed forces.

Elections this year had been ruled out by the ECP due to the requirement for a new delineation of seats in light of the release of the most recent digital census in 2023.

Article 224 of the Constitution requires elections to be held by November 7 within 90 days after the National Assembly’s dissolution since it ended three days before the conclusion of its constitutional term.

The Elections Act:

The Elections Act, however, also says in Section 17(2) that “the commission shall delimit constituencies after every census is officially published.”

Political parties expressed varying opinions about the date of elections during the most recent round of talks with the ECP, with some emphasising the need for new delineations while others, most notably the PTI and PPP, called for elections to be held within the constitutional time period.

In the meantime, President Alvi had last month requested a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja to “fix an appropriate date” for general elections.