ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has received a record 1,324 objections (representations) to the preliminary delimitations of the constituencies published on September 27 for the upcoming general elections.

According to the data released by the ECP on Saturday, the commission received a total of 672 representations concerning the delimitation of constituencies in Punjab, followed by 293 for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh (228), Balochistan (124), and seven for Islamabad.

The ECP had invited objections from registered voters after publishing the list of preliminary delimitations on September 27 after rearranging electoral districts across the country in light of the 2023 digital census.

It had set Oct 27 as the deadline for receiving representations, announcing that it would take decisions on these representations after hearing the positions of the respective parties and set one-month time to decide the representations. The ECP has already constituted two benches which are set to start hearing of the objections from Nov 1.

The preliminary proposals were earlier scheduled to be published on Oct 9, but on the demand of political parties, the timeline for the delimitation exercise was curtailed by 14 days to complete the process by Nov 30, instead of Dec 14.

The ECP’s decision to publish the preliminary delimitations was seen as a significant step towards the conduct of general elections, likely to be held in the first month of the next year. However, speculations continue on the fate of the polls, with many claiming the exercise could be delayed by at least a year, on one pretext or the other.

In 2022, the ECP received a total of 1,285 objections after it carried out delimitations on the basis of the controversial census conducted in 2017.

The data shows that the number of representations submitted for Punjab, Islamabad, and Sindh has decreased, whereas the commission has received more representations from the voters in Khyber Pakhtun­khwa and Balochistan as compared to the 2022 data.

At that time, the ECP had received 192 representations from KP and 104 from Balochistan. Similarly, it had received 705 objections from the voters in Punjab and 284 in Sindh.

The results of the 2023 digital census were approved by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) on August 5, just four days before the dissolution of the National Assembly by the then prime minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Since no constitutional amendment can be made to increase or decrease the total number of seats in the legislatures due to the lack of an elected parliament, the total number of seats within the national and provincial assemblies will remain the same.

Although the previous National Assembly consisted of 342 seats, it should be remembered that the 25th Amendment, under which the erstwhile tribal areas were merged into KP, 12 NA seats of Fata were abolished and six were allocated to KP, bringing the total number of seats in the National Assembly down to 336. In addition, there are 60 seats reserved for women and 10 have been reserved for non-Muslims.

Punjab holds the majority of 141 seats in NA, followed by Sindh with 61, KP with 45, Balochistan with 16, and Islamabad with three.

In the provincial assembly constituencies, figures show that Punjab leads with a total population of 127,688,922, followed by Sindh with 55,696,147, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 40,856,097, and Balochistan with 14,894,402.

Controversy over delimitations

As per the delimitation report, the methodology for calculating the share of seats in the national and provincial assemblies was described thus: “The population of the province/area has been divided by the total number of general seats and the average population or quota per National Assembly seat was obtained. Similarly, the population of a province was divided by the total number of general seats allocated to the provincial assembly to obtain a quota per seat.”

“In calculating the total number of seats, a fraction of 0.5 and above was generally taken as one seat and a fraction below 0.5 was ignored. Due to the peculiar situation in Balochistan, more than one district has been clubbed. Similarly, few clubbings have also been made in other provinces where necessary,” it said.

Later, the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) in a report claimed that the ECP seemed to have compromised the principle of ‘equality of vote’ in as many as 83 National Assembly constituencies, where the variance in population from the provincial quota exceeds the permissible legal limit of 10 per cent.

According to Fafen, as many as 180 constituencies of the national and provincial assemblies as proposed by the ECP do not meet the legal preferability of 10pc variation in population, undermining the principle of equal suffrage that was otherwise upheld by parliament through latest amendments to the Elections Act 2017.

On the other hand, the ECP justified the wide variation in the population of various constituencies, saying parity only had to be maintained between populations of constituencies within a district, not the province.

The ECP claimed there was a difference of over 10 per cent in only 64 constituencies and said the reasons for this variation had been recorded.

The ECP said under Article 51, 266 National Assem­bly seats have been allocated to the provinces on the basis of their population. In a reference to criticism, it said Fafen did not regard the district as a unit to determine the seats while analysing the variation in population size of constituencies.

Electoral experts, however, disagreed with the position taken by the ECP, asserting that the law governing principles of delimitation was very clear and it talks about the population of constituencies of an assembly and not a district. They asserted that a rule could not amend or override a legal provision.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2023