Fafen recommends reforms to ECP's delimitation exercise

The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) has said that while it acknowledged improvements in the ECP’s preliminary lists of constituencies, it urges the political parties to take cognizance of inadequacies in the relevant sections of the Elections Act, 2017 that restrict the electoral watchdog from delimiting electoral constituencies of equal sizes or keeping the variance of population among them under 10 per cent as required by the law.

In a report released on Friday, the network noted that the government has rightly repeated its emphasis on electoral reforms “which must be pursued in the spirit of greater consultation with all political parties including those which may not have a presence in the elected assemblies but are politically relevant”.

According to the Fafen, the election system will not improve without substantial improvements in the delimitation process to prevent an imbalance of population across electoral precincts and ensure representation of all geographical, linguist, ethnic and religious diversity in the elected bodies.

The network also observed that the delimitation was one of the most critical mechanisms of allocation of political power to people by the state, and therefore, must be just, fair and transparent.It noted that of particular concern was Section 20 (1) of the Elections Act, 2017 which lays out principles of delimitation for the ECP and states.

The said section of the act states: “All constituencies for general seats shall, as far as practicable, be delimited having regard to the distribution of population in geographically compact areas, physical features, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and public convenience and other cognate factors to ensure homogeneity in the creation of constituencies.”

In light of the above, the network emphasised that the major reason for population variance, including those that exceed the permissible 10 per cent variance, was the requirement of consideration of existing boundaries of administrative units, which are not defined in the law.

Through an analysis of the preliminary report of delimitation, Fafen has identified at least 82 (31 per cent) National Assembly and 88 (15 per cent) provincial assemblies’ constituencies calculated under Rules 8 (1) and 8 (4) of the Election Rules, 2017.

As many as 63 constituencies have 11 per cent to 20 per cent variance from the respective quota per seat, 12 constituencies have 21 per cent to 30 variance and 11 constituencies have above 30 per cent variance.

Recommendations

The Fafen recommended that the parliamentary and political parties may consider reviewing the application of various delimitation principles provided in section 20(1) of the Elections Act 2017 in light of the ongoing and previous delimitation exercises.

“The reform must emphasise the principles of inclusion and equality to ensure representation of all geographical, linguist, ethnic and religious diversity in the elected bodies, rather than safeguarding the integrity of administrative units which are determined by the executive.”

This condition under the existing law, it pointed out, restricts the ECP from containing the variance amongst constituencies of an assembly to a minimum (i.e. 10 per cent) and thus ensuring equal-sized constituencies. Similarly, the cognate factors must also be defined in section 20 (1) to minimise the discretionary space available to delimitation committees.

However, it noted that these were long-term reforms that need broader parliamentary consultations and approvals.

In the short term, it recommended that the provisions of Rule 10 be brought in conformity with section 20(3) of the Elections Act 2017 to ensure that the population sizes of the constituencies do not vary more than 10 per cent across an assembly.

“Currently, the first proviso under Rule 10 (5) provides for calculating a district average of the population per seat to work out the variance among the constituencies.”

This proviso may be amended in a manner that the determination of variance among the population of the constituencies is based on an assembly-wide average of the population per seat, the report said.

The network stressed that this amendment would help the ECP to strike a balance between the respect for administrative units and the population size of the constituencies as well as provide the public with a true picture of population disparities among the constituencies, reinforcing the need for long-term reforms.