The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has granted the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) an additional reserved seat in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly. This move followed a directive from the Peshawar High Court (PHC), which asked the commission to revisit the seat allocations.
A five-member ECP bench, led by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, issued a 15-page verdict explaining the decision. The ruling aligns PML-N’s general seat count with that of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), qualifying them for one more reserved seat under constitutional guidelines.
The verdict emphasized that recalculating quotas after the original allocation would lead to endless legal challenges. Therefore, the reserved seat quota was determined based on the party standings as of February 22, 2025, to maintain stability and fairness in the process.
The ECP accepted PML-N’s petition involving independent candidate Malik Tariq Awan, who officially joined the party within the required three-day window after the election. However, similar requests by PTI-P and ANP were dismissed, with the ECP stating that results from by-elections cannot influence reserved seat calculations.
This decision came a week after the PHC nullified the ECP’s earlier seat distribution notification. The court had asked the ECP to hold new hearings with all concerned parties and halted oath-taking of reserved seat lawmakers until a final ruling was announced.
Following the ECP’s announcement, JUI-F’s lawyer Kamran Murtaza said all parties had a chance to present their arguments. He acknowledged that PML-N’s stronger claim was based on the timely inclusion of an independent candidate into its party ranks.