Election commission (ECP) informs President Arif Alvi that elections cannot be held before October
In a three page reply to the President, the ECP has pointed out that elections are not possible within three months because it required at least 7 months to hold the fresh elections
The Election
Commission of Pakistan (ECP) informed President Arif Alvi today April 07 that
it cannot hold the next general elections within three months and suggested
that the process be held in October as the delimitation of constituencies was
not completed.
In a letter,
the ECP informed President Alvi that it is entrusted with holding elections
“honestly, justly and fairly”. The ECP also informed the president that the “delimitation
of constituencies is one of the foundational steps towards election”.
“According
to Article 51(5) of the Constitution and Section 17 of Elections Act, 2017,
delimitation of constituencies is conducted on the basis of population in
accordance with the last census officially published,” said the ECP.
The ECP said that the “provisional results of 6th national census 2017” were published
on January 3, 2018, and it was authorised to carry out “delimitation of
national and provincial assemblies” on the provisional results “one-time” via
the amendment made under Article 51(5) of the Constitution.
The ECP
stated that the final publication of the official results of the census was a
“constitutional requirement for delimitation of constituencies” for the next
general elections.
The ECP
further explained that under the 25th amendment, seats allocated to the former
federally-administrated tribal areas were merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “12
seats allocated to FATA were abolished and six seats were allocated to KP on
the basis of population. Resultantly, the number of seats in the National
Assembly was reduced to 266 from 272. For this reason, fresh delimitation was
not possible due to the non-publication of official census results by the
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics,” said the ECP.
The ECP said
that the Council of Common Interests published the sixth census results after
which it started the delimitation process and “approved timelines for
delimitation of constituencies for national and provincial assemblies”.
The ECP said
that it had to halt the process after the government had announced holding a
fresh digital census.
“Subsequently, letters dated 30-09-2021 and 21-01-2022 (Annexures C-I-C-H) were written to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs for finalisation and publication of fresh digital census results by the end of the year 2022 so that the process of delimitation could be initiated and completed well within time as the digital census was planned to be completed by March 2023.
The
electoral body reminded President Alvi that it was “not the sole authority to
make decisions with regards to the conduct of elections," adding that it
“remains dependent” on the federal and provincial governments.
"for the
required feedback in case of any inaction or delay on the part of any
government to perform its duties and to assist the commission, the delay in the
conduct of delimitation cannot be attributed to the commission by any stretch
of the imagination," said the ECP.
“The
Election Commission though fully committed to holding elections, would however
require at least four additional months to complete the exercise of delimitation.
Elections could safely be held honestly justly fairly as ordained in Article
18(3) of the constitution in October 2022,” said the ECP.
To further
deliberate the issue, the ECP has also requested President Alvi to hold a
meeting.
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