Pakistan: General elections can't be held on basis of latest delimitation as results not yet notified

Islamabad [Pakistan], June 29 : Since the results of the digital census are yet to be formally notified in Pakistan, conducting the upcoming general polls on the basis of the latest delimitation is "out of the question", a senior official of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said, Dawn reported.

"The general elections 2023 for the national and provincial assemblies will be conducted as per the limits of the constituencies published by the Commission on August 5 last year," Dawn quoted the official.

The remarks come ahead of a post-enumeration survey scheduled to start on July 8, under which a report will be submitted to the Council of Common Interests (CCI) by July 31.

Amid all this, various federal ministers have claimed that the forthcoming polls will be preceded by a fresh delimitation exercise, Dawn reported.

The official said that under Article 51(5) of the Constitution and Section 17 (2) of the Elections Act, the final published data was required for the purpose of delimitation of constituencies, and the commission was bound to start the delimitation process once the census was officially published.

Notably, seats in the National Assembly are allocated to each province and federal territory based on the population according to the last preceding officially published census, under Article-51(3) of the Pakistan Constitution.

Therefore, a constitutional amendment would be required following the official publication of census results, which was technically not possible after acceptance of the resignations of the PTI lawmakers, Dawn quoted the official.

The official said that a fresh delimitation exercise, which takes around four to six months, would make it impossible to conduct the general polls due before October 12 this year.

He further added the belated exercise of a fresh census with general elections just around the corner makes it "practically impossible" for the ECP to carry out fresh delimitation for the upcoming general elections.

"The ECP will have no other option but to hold upcoming general elections on the basis of the existing delimitation," he said. He said the ECP had been asking the government to publish official results of the seventh population and housing census by December 31, 2022," the official said.

Once the census was published, the ECP would require more than four months to carry out a fresh delimitation exercise.

"Similarly, the revision of electoral rolls would also be required as a result of any increase or decrease in the number of census block codes and changes in the boundaries of blocks in different districts," Dawn quoted the official.

Another ECP official said the sixth national census was held in the country between March and May 2017. Following the 24th Constitutional Amendment in Article 51 in Dec 2017, the delimitation of constituencies was carried out for the 2018 general elections on the basis of provisional results of the 2017 census as a one-time dispensation.

The final results of the population census were published in the official gazette by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on May 6, 2021.

Under the Pakistan Constitution, it is imperative for the commission to carry out fresh delimitation of all the constituencies of the national and provincial assemblies before the next general elections. Accordingly, provincial governments and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics were asked to supply requisite maps and data. The procured data and maps were scrutinised at ECP Secretariat, Dawn reported.

The official said the commission successfully completed the delimitation process after adopting all legal measures and published final delimitation of constituencies on Aug 5, 2022.

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