Election hopes waver

It was always going to be something of a tight squeeze, getting the census results squared away and the boundary delimitations done and dusted before the 2018 election was due. The squeeze has now become tighter and doubt has to be cast on the timely running of the next general election unless there is a quick resolution to some very pressing difficulties. The stumbling block is the controversy over the provisional census results and the government has convened a meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) on 13^th November in an effort to resolve matters.

The government says it is anxious to get the delimitation (of boundaries) bill through in order to hold the election as notified, but some disagree and accuse the government of dragging its feet in order to delay the polls. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two. There are several glaring inconsistencies about the census, two of the most obvious being the number of transgender people there are and the numbers of people suffering from a physical handicap, in neither case there seeming to be much by way of correlation with ground realities. But it is the population of Karachi that has proved to be the greatest impediment and cause for doubt of the census results.

The population of Karachi has been shown to be less than that of Lahore — a palpable nonsense. This is explained by the fact that the Punjab government had in 2015 notified boundaries in all of Lahore plus two of the union councils of Kasur, whilst the boundaries of Karachi for electoral purposes have remained as they were in 1998. With the annual growth rate of Karachi being lower than Lahore and the projections of the international observer groups being close to the declared provisional results much is — perhaps — explained. If this is indeed the case then the discrepancy is understood — but it is not an argument easily accepted hence the meeting on 13^th November. Much of the onus now rests on the shoulders of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). There is a window of three to four weeks at most, beyond which electoral slippage looms.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2017.

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