The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) today released a revised schedule for the delimitation of union councils in Punjab, marking another step toward holding the province’s long-delayed local government elections.
Under the updated timetable, objections to the proposed union council boundaries may be submitted until July 4, while the ECP will decide all delimitation-related objections by July 29.
The commission said decisions on the objections would be communicated to Punjab’s union council delimitation committees by Aug. 7, with the final list of union council boundaries scheduled for publication on Aug. 17.
Following the completion of the delimitation exercise, the ECP will issue the formal schedule for local government elections in Punjab.
Punjab’s local government elections have remained overdue since the dissolution of elected local councils by the then Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) provincial government in April 2019. The decision was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court, which restored the local bodies. Those councils later completed their constitutional tenure on Dec. 31, 2021.
Under Article 140-A of the Constitution and Section 219(4) of the Elections Act, the ECP is constitutionally required to conduct local government elections within 120 days of the expiry of local councils’ tenure. Based on that requirement, the elections should have been held by the end of April 2022.
The electoral process, however, was repeatedly delayed after the Punjab government introduced successive amendments to the province’s local government legislation, postponing constituency delimitation and other preparatory steps.
On Oct. 8, 2025, the ECP announced plans to hold local government elections in December 2025 and directed the Punjab government to immediately begin the delimitation process, with instructions to complete the exercise within two months.
Less than two weeks later, the commission withdrew that schedule after the provincial government enacted the Punjab Local Government Act, 2025. The ECP replaced the delimitation plan prepared under the 2022 law and granted the Punjab government four weeks to finalize new delimitation and demarcation rules under the updated legislation.
On Oct. 31, 2025, the ECP announced that local government elections in Punjab could not be conducted before the second quarter of 2026, citing the absence of the legal framework and administrative arrangements required to organize the polls.