PML-N faces new front over delimitations

Parliamentary panel agrees to scrap fresh demarcations

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) appears to be heading towards confrontation with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) after a parliamentary committee ‘agreed’ to scrap new delimitation of constituencies and initiate punitive action against the officials who carried out fresh demarcations.

A meeting of the Special Committee on Delimitation of Constituencies was held on Wednesday under National Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi.

“The committee agreed on the findings of the Working Group on the Delimitation of Constituencies [carried out] by ECP,” reads an official handout issued after the meeting.

The handout also delineated recommendations of the working group which, if adopted by parliament, would scrap delimitations carried out by the ECP on the basis of provisional results of the population census.

Previously, parliament had passed the 24th amendment to the Constitution to allow the election authorities to carry out delimitations on the basis of provisional results of 2017 census, anticipating that final results would be notified before the general elections.



Subsequently, the ECP carried out delimitations making population main criterion for marking the boundaries of national and provincial assemblies’ constituencies. Draft delimitations were made public on March 5 for public scrutiny. Some lawmakers raised objections to ‘glaring disparities’ in the demarcation work.

The National Assembly speaker set up a committee headed by the deputy speaker to look into the matter. The committee formed a working group, headed by Minister for Privatisation Daniyal Aziz. The working group formulated its recommendations. However, opposition lawmakers on the sub-panel publically disowned them later.



On Wednesday, the committee discussed recommendations, endorsed them and sent them to all members who did not attend the session, soliciting their comments. The recommendations require that:

1. Constitutional amendment bill may be passed by deleting provisions of constitutional amendment along with the provisional census data being used because the final census data would not be available before the elections. “Therefore, the question of delay of elections does not arise and we are well before the election schedule”;


2. That the amendment to Section 20 of the Elections Act, 2017 be converted into an ordinance to bring sub-rule (5) of rule 10 of Election Rules, 2017 into the main text of the act, thereby blocking the fractionalisation at the district level and clarifying the administrative boundaries and other matters;

3) An inquiry be instituted under the Pakistan Commission of Inquiry Act, 2017 under a retired judge to inquire into gross legal violations by delimitation committees and their motivations, including but not limited to the movement of members of the committees, their communication in addition to examining them under oath. Furthermore, it would determine reasons for the commission to overlook gross violation of uniformity in applications of the law and rules. The inquiry will also look into detailed chronological events with regard to the recent census and compare it with previous PES norms and standards, and reasons and the motivation misleading this committee and parliament leading to the constitutional amendment for provisional census data delimitation;

4) Public interest litigation be filed under Article 184 of the Constitution in the public interest on the gross violation of law and tampering of rights by the ECP and its motivators; and

5) Resolution by parliament itemising grave violations by the ECP and FBS, and providing for a remedy by respective institutions.



The meeting was attended by Daniyal Aziz, SA Iqbal Quadri, Sahibzada Tariqullah, Siraj Muhammad Khan and Naeema Kishwar Khan.

The ECP is currently hearing objections to fresh delimitations before finalising them on May 3. It received more than 1,200 objections and has disposed of almost half the petitions.

If parliament adopts the committee’s recommendations, new delimitations would be scrapped immediately.

Going by the numbers in parliament, it is highly likely that these suggestions will sail through without much trouble. The chances of two mainstream opposition parties – the PPP and the PTI – joining hands to oppose these recommendations are very slim.