It’s not surprising, really, that the census exercise will not be complete in time to carry out fresh delimitations for the ’18 election. Those with slightly long memories will remember how the government dragged its feet on the census till it had to be practically arm-twisted by the Supreme Court. For a while the official word was that the exercise would be completed just in time for a good show in ’18. Now, however, it is clear that the next general election, too, will have to be conducted in accordance with existing delimitations. It is, of course, stating the obvious these were based on the 1998 population census and no doubt many demographic changes have taken place since then.
There is more, of course. The parliamentary panel set up in 2014 to hammer out an electoral reforms package in three months has yet to make its findings known. According to news reports, the package is apparently ‘almost’ ready for legislation; but that line has played like a broken record all this time. So far ECP has relied on official correspondence to make its discomfort known to the government. But since practically no progress has been made in the last three years, and the clock ticking to the next election, the Commission is now sweating in public.
It does not even know whether to train the hundreds of thousands of government employees to be used in the next election according to old laws or new ones. Surely PML-N would need little reminding about the headache that comes with flawed elections. After the unrest following the last vote, especially, it should have taken all steps to ensure transparency in a timely manner. The reality, unfortunately, is quite the opposite. It seems the government has been foiling ECP attempts to carry out a credible general election by, simply, dragging its feet some more on important issues.