ECP, NA panel lock horns over delimitation
Fafen identifies discrepancies in 81 NA constituencies
PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
Issues related to discrepancies in the proposed delimitations are becoming acrimonious and the Parliamentary Special Committee on Delimitation of Constituencies rejects the objection raised by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that the panel is interfering in its mandate.
The committee, headed by National Assembly Deputy Speaker Mutaza Javed Abbasi, on Friday discussed the March 15 orders of the ECP in which the commission had ruled that the delimitation of the constituencies was the mandate of the election watchdog only.
Moreover, the orders further said that there was a laid-down procedure for raising objections, if any, to the delimitations process, implying that the special parliamentary committee was interfering in its mandate.
The committee held an in-camera session and deliberated on the ECP’s order. The committee described the order as misunderstanding.
“During the 1st meeting of the Working Group held on March 15, 2018 an Order of the Election Commission of Pakistan issued on 15th March, 2018 was presented stating that no interference in the mandate of Election Commission of Pakistan will be made by any committee or any other institution. The Order appears to be result of misunderstanding,” an official hand-out said.
The committee in its maiden meeting on March 14 formed a working group with Daniyal Aziz as its convener. In the first meeting of the working group on Thursday, an ECP additional secretary presented the commission’s order.
On March 5, the ECP published a preliminary report for revamping the electoral constituencies and invited objections from the general public by April 3. However, on March 13, the National Assembly formed the committee after several members raised questions about the delimitation proposals.
FAFEN seeks age-wise population data to count eligible voters
The special committee would examine the proposals and the objections and send back its recommendations to the House within seven days. However, the ECP would conduct hearings into the objections raised by the public before notifying the delimitations on May 3.
Last time the ECP conducted such large scale revamp of the constituencies before the 2002 general elections on the basis of 1998 census. This time the exercise is being done on the basis of provisional results of the 2017 population census.
The parliamentary committee clarifies that it was formed to make its recommendations to the house and not to the ECP. Therefore, “no interference has been made in the mandate of the commission,” the official hand-out said.
“It is the mandate of the Assembly to examine the matters relating to laws enacted by the Parliament and subordinate legislation made thereunder to ensure the implementation thereof accordingly,” it added.
“The findings and recommendations, if any, of the Committee are yet to be considered by the Assembly and if decided then only may be forwarded to the Commission as per established parliamentary practices relating to any other law as well.”
Fafen Identifies discrepancies in size of constituencies
The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) in a report released on Friday identified varying degrees of discrepancies in the population size of the electoral constituencies under the proposed delimitation.
While the ECP has upheld the legal delimitation principles of geographical compactness and respect for the existing boundaries of administrative units, Fafen said, the principle of equality of vote is compromised in as many as 81 National Assembly constituencies where the variation in population size exceeds the ordinarily permissible legal limit of 10%.
The Election Rules, 2017 -- drafted and approved by ECP -- appeared “to have been strictly adhered to but in that process legal principle of equality of vote is compromised”, it added.
“Rules pertaining to delimitation could not sufficiently operationalize the legal principle of equality of vote among constituencies. Law provides for equality among constituencies but Rules have attempted to follow this principle among provinces and districts.”
In a detailed analysis of the ECP’s ‘Preliminary Report and List of Constituencies’, Fafen points to variations found in the population and voter size of the National Assembly constituencies with regards to the national, provincial and district averages of the population and voters per constituency.
Legally, as far as possible, variation in population of constituencies of an assembly should not ordinarily exceed 10%. However, the Fafen analysis reveals that the variation exceeds the limit of ±10% in as many as 81, out of 260, National Assembly constituencies.
The Elections Act, 2017 allows the ECP to deviate from this permissible limit in only exceptional cases; however, the reasons for any such deviation must be recorded in the delimitation order. However, according to Fafen, the ECP used this discretionary power in case of around one third of the constituencies.
Delineation of electoral constituencies in Sindh completed
Of the 81 constituencies, 59 constituencies have been suggested with a variations rate between 11% and 20%, 11 constituencies have variation between 21% and 30%, six constituencies have between 31% and 40% and in five constituencies, this variation is goes as high as 41-50%.
The population of each of the three constituencies of Islamabad is 14% less than the national average of population per NA constituency. Similarly, the population of the NA constituencies in Balochistan is also lower than the national average.
The variation becomes even more obvious in other provinces. For instance, NA-37 Tank in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa represents 391,885 citizens, while NA-35 Bannu has a population of around 1.2 million.
Similarly, in Punjab, NA-37 Jhelum-II has been demarcated as a seat with a population of 546,113 citizens, while NA-87 Hafizabad-I has a population of almost 1.2 million -- almost double the Jhelum constituency.
In Sindh, NA-199 Shikarpur-II has been created with a population of 588,185 citizens, while NA-197 Kashmore represents 1,089,169 individuals. In Balochistan, NA-262 Kachhi-cum-Jhal Magsi has a population of 386,255 citizens against 1,083,497 citizens of NA-268 Mastung-cum-Chaghai-cum-Kalat-cum-Shaheed Sikandarabad-cum-Nushki.
Nationally, the Balochistan constituency NA-262 Kachhi-cum-JhalMagsi is the smallest with regards to the population size while the KP constituency NA-65 is the largest.
The disparities become more visible when the ECP voter statistics are applied on the suggested constituencies. If statistics, updated in October 2017, are projected on the fresh delimitation proposals, the constituency sizes vary between a voter size of 130,000 to more than 600,000.
Fafen’s analysis of potential voting population of suggested constituencies indicates that two NA constituencies – one each in Balochistan and KP – will have less than 150,000 registered voters.
On an average, each NA constituency will potentially have more than 364,000 voters; however, the inter-constituency distribution of voters is skewed. For instance, one member of National Assembly (MNA) will represent 130,000 voters for NA-262 and 617,000 voters of NA-19 Haripur.
As many as 19 constituencies – 10 in Balochistan, and three each in K-P, Sindh and Islamabad – will have a voting population between 150,000 and 249,999 voters. Overall, 73 NA constituencies will have less voters than the national average and 85 constituencies will have voters above this average.
Fafen recommended to the ECP to take the deviation from delimitation principle of capping the variation to ±10% seriously and ensure that the citizen’s right to equal representation is respected everywhere in the country.
Seventy-eight – more than one-third – NA constituencies will have 250,000 to 349,999 voters. Most of the Sindh constituencies – 42 of the 61 – fall in this range. As many as 20 constituencies in Punjab and 13 in K-P will also join their Sindh counterparts to have voters in this range.
More than half of the all the NA constituencies (138) will have a voting population of 350,000 to 450,000 people. An overwhelming majority of the Punjab constituencies (107 of 141) will fall under this bracket. As many as 15 NA constituencies will have the voters between 450,000 and 550,000 and four constituencies will have more than 550,000 voters.
Issues related to discrepancies in the proposed delimitations are becoming acrimonious and the Parliamentary Special Committee on Delimitation of Constituencies rejects the objection raised by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that the panel is interfering in its mandate.
The committee, headed by National Assembly Deputy Speaker Mutaza Javed Abbasi, on Friday discussed the March 15 orders of the ECP in which the commission had ruled that the delimitation of the constituencies was the mandate of the election watchdog only.
Moreover, the orders further said that there was a laid-down procedure for raising objections, if any, to the delimitations process, implying that the special parliamentary committee was interfering in its mandate.
The committee held an in-camera session and deliberated on the ECP’s order. The committee described the order as misunderstanding.
“During the 1st meeting of the Working Group held on March 15, 2018 an Order of the Election Commission of Pakistan issued on 15th March, 2018 was presented stating that no interference in the mandate of Election Commission of Pakistan will be made by any committee or any other institution. The Order appears to be result of misunderstanding,” an official hand-out said.
The committee in its maiden meeting on March 14 formed a working group with Daniyal Aziz as its convener. In the first meeting of the working group on Thursday, an ECP additional secretary presented the commission’s order.
On March 5, the ECP published a preliminary report for revamping the electoral constituencies and invited objections from the general public by April 3. However, on March 13, the National Assembly formed the committee after several members raised questions about the delimitation proposals.
FAFEN seeks age-wise population data to count eligible voters
The special committee would examine the proposals and the objections and send back its recommendations to the House within seven days. However, the ECP would conduct hearings into the objections raised by the public before notifying the delimitations on May 3.
Last time the ECP conducted such large scale revamp of the constituencies before the 2002 general elections on the basis of 1998 census. This time the exercise is being done on the basis of provisional results of the 2017 population census.
The parliamentary committee clarifies that it was formed to make its recommendations to the house and not to the ECP. Therefore, “no interference has been made in the mandate of the commission,” the official hand-out said.
“It is the mandate of the Assembly to examine the matters relating to laws enacted by the Parliament and subordinate legislation made thereunder to ensure the implementation thereof accordingly,” it added.
“The findings and recommendations, if any, of the Committee are yet to be considered by the Assembly and if decided then only may be forwarded to the Commission as per established parliamentary practices relating to any other law as well.”
Fafen Identifies discrepancies in size of constituencies
The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) in a report released on Friday identified varying degrees of discrepancies in the population size of the electoral constituencies under the proposed delimitation.
While the ECP has upheld the legal delimitation principles of geographical compactness and respect for the existing boundaries of administrative units, Fafen said, the principle of equality of vote is compromised in as many as 81 National Assembly constituencies where the variation in population size exceeds the ordinarily permissible legal limit of 10%.
The Election Rules, 2017 -- drafted and approved by ECP -- appeared “to have been strictly adhered to but in that process legal principle of equality of vote is compromised”, it added.
“Rules pertaining to delimitation could not sufficiently operationalize the legal principle of equality of vote among constituencies. Law provides for equality among constituencies but Rules have attempted to follow this principle among provinces and districts.”
In a detailed analysis of the ECP’s ‘Preliminary Report and List of Constituencies’, Fafen points to variations found in the population and voter size of the National Assembly constituencies with regards to the national, provincial and district averages of the population and voters per constituency.
Legally, as far as possible, variation in population of constituencies of an assembly should not ordinarily exceed 10%. However, the Fafen analysis reveals that the variation exceeds the limit of ±10% in as many as 81, out of 260, National Assembly constituencies.
The Elections Act, 2017 allows the ECP to deviate from this permissible limit in only exceptional cases; however, the reasons for any such deviation must be recorded in the delimitation order. However, according to Fafen, the ECP used this discretionary power in case of around one third of the constituencies.
Delineation of electoral constituencies in Sindh completed
Of the 81 constituencies, 59 constituencies have been suggested with a variations rate between 11% and 20%, 11 constituencies have variation between 21% and 30%, six constituencies have between 31% and 40% and in five constituencies, this variation is goes as high as 41-50%.
The population of each of the three constituencies of Islamabad is 14% less than the national average of population per NA constituency. Similarly, the population of the NA constituencies in Balochistan is also lower than the national average.
The variation becomes even more obvious in other provinces. For instance, NA-37 Tank in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa represents 391,885 citizens, while NA-35 Bannu has a population of around 1.2 million.
Similarly, in Punjab, NA-37 Jhelum-II has been demarcated as a seat with a population of 546,113 citizens, while NA-87 Hafizabad-I has a population of almost 1.2 million -- almost double the Jhelum constituency.
In Sindh, NA-199 Shikarpur-II has been created with a population of 588,185 citizens, while NA-197 Kashmore represents 1,089,169 individuals. In Balochistan, NA-262 Kachhi-cum-Jhal Magsi has a population of 386,255 citizens against 1,083,497 citizens of NA-268 Mastung-cum-Chaghai-cum-Kalat-cum-Shaheed Sikandarabad-cum-Nushki.
Nationally, the Balochistan constituency NA-262 Kachhi-cum-JhalMagsi is the smallest with regards to the population size while the KP constituency NA-65 is the largest.
The disparities become more visible when the ECP voter statistics are applied on the suggested constituencies. If statistics, updated in October 2017, are projected on the fresh delimitation proposals, the constituency sizes vary between a voter size of 130,000 to more than 600,000.
Fafen’s analysis of potential voting population of suggested constituencies indicates that two NA constituencies – one each in Balochistan and KP – will have less than 150,000 registered voters.
On an average, each NA constituency will potentially have more than 364,000 voters; however, the inter-constituency distribution of voters is skewed. For instance, one member of National Assembly (MNA) will represent 130,000 voters for NA-262 and 617,000 voters of NA-19 Haripur.
As many as 19 constituencies – 10 in Balochistan, and three each in K-P, Sindh and Islamabad – will have a voting population between 150,000 and 249,999 voters. Overall, 73 NA constituencies will have less voters than the national average and 85 constituencies will have voters above this average.
Fafen recommended to the ECP to take the deviation from delimitation principle of capping the variation to ±10% seriously and ensure that the citizen’s right to equal representation is respected everywhere in the country.
Seventy-eight – more than one-third – NA constituencies will have 250,000 to 349,999 voters. Most of the Sindh constituencies – 42 of the 61 – fall in this range. As many as 20 constituencies in Punjab and 13 in K-P will also join their Sindh counterparts to have voters in this range.
More than half of the all the NA constituencies (138) will have a voting population of 350,000 to 450,000 people. An overwhelming majority of the Punjab constituencies (107 of 141) will fall under this bracket. As many as 15 NA constituencies will have the voters between 450,000 and 550,000 and four constituencies will have more than 550,000 voters.