Elections in 90 days out of question as ECP goes for new delimitations

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced the schedule of new delimitations to be carried out as per the new census approved by the Council of Common Interest (CCI) earlier this month.

As per the schedule, the new delimitation of the constituencies across the country will be notified in December this year.

The ECP schedule showed that fresh delimitation will take nearly four months, meaning the general elections in the country cannot be held within 90 days of the dissolution of the provincial and national assemblies. 

According to a schedule issued by the ECP today, the electoral watchdog will complete the delimitation exercise by mid-December.

As a first step, the boundaries of administrative units across the country will be frozen by Aug 17 and delimitation committees for all the provinces and the federal capital will be formed by Aug 21.

The ECP said administrative arrangements for delimitation, including the requisition of maps along with other necessary data, description of districts and tehsils from provinces, obtaining district census reports etc, would be completed between Aug 22-Aug 30.

Training will be provided to the delimitation committees between Sep 1 to Sep 4. District quotas for national and provincial assemblies will be shared with delimitation committees by Sep 5-Sep 7. Preliminary delimitations of constituencies will be prepared by committees from Sep 8 to Oct 7.

Preliminary delimitations will be published on Oct 9 after which people will present their objections and recommendations to the ECP on the initial delimitation from Oct 10 to Nov 8. The ECP will hear and decide all objections from Nov 10 to Dec 9 and the final list of constituencies will be published on Dec 14.

Separately, the electoral body also issued a list of directives for “all those in service of Pakistan” to assist it in the process of delimitation under Article 220 of the Constitution so that “elections can be held as enshrined in Article 218(3) of the Constitution”.

As per the instructions, the limits of revenue units “shall stand frozen from today” and “there shall be no change in the limits of the revenue units” till the completion of the delimitation process.