President can fix election date, CJP observes in poll suo motu

ISLAMABAD: According to Pakistan’s Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, the Elections Act of 2017 was explicitly written by the legislature to provide the president the authority to announce the election date.

President Arif Alvi announced earlier this month that elections would take place in April after concluding that the governors of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa KP and Punjab, Haji Ghulam Ali and Baligh Ur Rehman, and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) were not carrying out their constitutional obligations to announce the date for polls in both provinces. This announcement was met with harsh criticism from the government.