ISLAMABAD, April 07 (Online): Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has regretted to hold general election in 90 days.
The ECP has said in a letter sent to President Arif Alvi that it will require more 4 months in holding general election in fair and transparent manner and holding election by it can become possible only in October 2022 in the prevailing situation.
The letter said ECP is an independent and constitutional institution and it considers it a sacred obligation to hold election under sub clause 3 of article 218 of the constitution. In order to hold election in fair and transparent manner it is must that all the arrangements should be made.
Delimitation of constituencies is basic step with reference to election and the delimitation of constituencies are made on the basis of population census.
The interim result of 6th population census 2017 was published on January 03, 2018. Election commission conducted delimitation of constituencies of national and provincial assemblies as per this census.
It is imperative for the sake of coming general election that final result of population census are published. Election commission made efforts umpteen time in this regard. Chief Election Commissioner wrote a letter to Prime Minister (PM) on May 07 2020 on this count besides writing letters to ministry of law and justice.
Letters were also sent to ministry of parliamentary affairs, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and secretary Senate and National Assembly. FATA was merged into KP after 25th constitutional amendment. This way the FATA seats were reduced from 12 to 6. Likewise the general seats in National Assembly (NA) were reduced from 272 to 266.
Due to this reason fresh delimitation was mandatory to be carried out in the province of KP but it was not possible due to non publication of official census results by PBS.
The letter said that Council of Common Interests (CCI) approved 6th census and ECP started working on the process of delimitation of constituencies for NA and provincial assemblies. In the meantime government announced to carry out new digital census. Due to it ECP suspended the work on delimitation of constituencies despite the fact its schedule was approved.
Two letters were written to ministry of parliamentary affairs in this situation asking it to complete the result of digital census by the end of 2022 so that the process of delimitation could be completed till March 2023.
ECP has received no reply from ministry of parliamentary affairs due to which the process of delimitation was further delayed.
ECP is not authorized to organize election alone. It is imperative that federal and provincial government should sit together to evolve strategy. The responsibility for delay in the process of delimitation cannot be shifted to only ECP because the federal and provincial governments are bound to extend cooperation to ECP in such matters
The concluding lines of the letter said ECP is determined for conducting general election however four months more will be required by ECP to complete the process of delimitation. The general election can take place in October 2022 in fair and transparent manner.
The ECP has sought time from the President of Pakistan to give him briefing on this matter.
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