General elections are on the back burner. The decision of the outgoing cabinet of PDM coalition to approve the Census 2023 results has torpedoed the electioneering theme, and put the electoral watchdog in a fix. Now the Election Commission is on record having said that polls are not possible within the mandatory 90 days, and redrawing of constituencies and delimitations as per new digital census will take time.
The preliminary estimation is that the entire process would be completed by the mid of December, fuelling concerns that elections are not on the cards, at least, before February next year. But even on that there is no word of certainty, which has led to simmering concerns from all those who want to see the dictates of the constitution prevail over political and administrative engineering of delaying them.
While a lot of litigation, including that of the PTI, are piling up at the doors of judiciary, praying for polls within the constitutionally mandated timeframe, there are a couple of aspects that need in-depth analysis. On the one hand, Article 224 of the Constitution binds the ECP to conduct general elections within 90 days of the assembly’s dissolution, but on the other, Section 17(2) of the Elections Act desires that the electoral body delimit constituencies after every census is officially published. Now, it’s a catch-22 situation. The Council of Common Interests under the former PM, while approving the census, had literally put impediments on the path of timely elections.
The plot thickens as an official of ECP was quoted in media as saying that the commission is “not legally bound to immediately carry out fresh delimitation of constituencies” after the official notification of census results. Perhaps, this is why the official notification of the final results of the census was issued in 2021, while the ECP published limits of constituencies in August 2022. This has driven allegations of malice, and this is where the law and courts have to take a call.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 19th, 2023.
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