ISLAMABAD: With three political parties presently “headless,” the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has instructed the heads of all political parties registered with the electoral body to submit the annual wealth statements of their respective political parties for the previous financial year 2025-26, a mandatory requirement under the relevant laws.
The ECP, in a recent handout, directed the heads of political parties to submit the required wealth statements under Section 210 of the Elections Act 2017.
This Section provides that a political party shall submit to the Commission, within 60 days from the close of a financial year, a consolidated statement of its accounts audited by a chartered accountant — on the prescribed form.
Keeping this law in view, the political parties are required to submit their consolidated statements of accounts for the last financial year; from 1 July 2025 to 30th June 2026, latest by this month’s 29th.
This development surfaces at a time when three political entities; Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP), Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) remain practically headless.
Last month, Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja said that PKMAP had no chairman currently due to the non-conduct of intra-party elections—a statement which implied that the ECP refused to acknowledge Mahmood Khan Achakzai, who is the Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly, as the head of his political party.
The CEC made these remarks while heading a five-member full ECP bench during the hearing of three cases against PKMAP related to the non-conduct of intra-party elections, the amended constitution and the accounts of PKMAP.
Also, last month, the ECP rejected the intra-party polls of TLP, which was notified as a proscribed organisation by the Interior Ministry on terrorism charges last year, declaring it ineligible to obtain an election symbol. TLP chief Saad Rizvi, along with his brother Anas Rizvi, allegedly went into hiding following a police crackdown on TLP long march in Muridke in October last year. Till date, his whereabouts remain unknown.
Apart from that, pending with the electoral body, PTI intra-party polls case sees a prolonged delay of over four years. The electoral body has rejected the legality of these elections thrice, since June 2022, allegedly out of politically motivated reasons. The ECP has refused to accept Barrister Gohar Ali Khan as the PTI Chairman.
Apart from that, the submission of the annual wealth statements by the political parties to the ECP is regarded as a ceremonial exercise amidst lack of well-defined laws for the electoral body’s Political Wing to proceed against any tax-related discrepancies in the related wealth statements.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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