ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has linked the conduct of fresh deli­­mi­tation with official notification of the final results of the yet-to-com­mence exercise of the first-ever digital census results by March 31, 2023.

Informed sources told Dawn that the decision, taken after the calculation of minimum time required with squeezed timelines through an in-house discussion, has been conveyed to the government.

“An in-house meeting has been held and minimum time required for each activity has been calculated and possibility of start of various activities simultaneously has also been examined.

“In the circumstances, please be informed that it would be difficult for the ECP to undertake the exercise of fresh delimitation of constituencies as per Article 51(5) of the Consti­tution, complete other electoral activities mentioned above and conduct of General Election 2023 in time as per Constitutional mandate in case official results are not provided on or before 31st March, 2023,” read a letter, seen by Dawn, sent to the secretary of the ministry of plan­­ning, development and special initiatives with the signatures of special secretary of ECP Zafar Iqbal Hussain.

Through the letter, the ECP drew attention of the ministry towards the recent meeting of election commission held under the chairmanship of Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja with the chief statistician and his team on Dec 8.

The chief statistician briefed that the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in its 49th meeting approved the timelines for conduct of 7th population and housing census “digitally” and as per the initial plan, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) had to provide provisional results of population and housing census to the ECP by Dec 31, 2022.

In the meeting, the PBS took the stance that initially the PBS engaged the National Radio and Tele­communication Corporation (NRTC) for provision of software, hardware and allied services, but the NRTC pulled out and expressed its inability to provide its services and as a result of this the four-month delay occurred. Afterwards, the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) was engaged for the above services.

Further, the transition of government and economic situation of the country caused further delay. Member of Resource Management/Support Services also briefed the ECP that as per revised timelines the PBS would be able to provide provisional census results to the ECP by April 30, 2023.

During the meeting, the PBS was informed that the ECP time and again took up the matter with the ministry of planning development and special initiatives and other authorities concerned with a request that final results of the population and housing census be published by Dec 31, 2022, to enable the ECP to complete key electoral activities for holding general election 2023 i.e. preparation of action plan, delimitation of constituencies and revision of electoral rolls etc.

An ECP official told Dawn that under Article 51(5) of the Constitution, the final published data was required for the purpose of delimitation of constituencies.

He said that under Section 17(2) of the Elections Act, 2017, the ECP was bound to start delimiting constituencies after the census result was officially published.

He pointed out that the term of current assemblies would expire on Aug 12 next year, except for the Punjab Assembly, which would last until Aug 14 the same year.

Once the census result was published, the ECP official said the ECP would require time to carry out the fresh delimitation exercise. He said 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 boundaries of blocks in different districts.

“Likewise, an action plan under Section 14 of the Elections Act, 2017, is also required to be prepared four months before the general elections, i.e. in April, 2023,” he pointed out.

He said the ECP earlier wanted the final census results by Dec 31, 2023, but it had now set a deadline of March 31, 2023, to be able to conduct fresh delimitation and undertake other essential pre-poll activities in the minimum possible time, making it clear that it would not be possible otherwise to go for fresh delimitation.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2022