- Delimitations and election
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has rightly warned against creating controversy over the delimitation exercise even as it received 1,286 objections to the constituencies that were changed to accommodate the results of the latest population census. No doubt a number of loopholes have presented themselves, as reflected in the high number of complaints, but the Commission is again right to rule out initial recommendations of the working group of parliamentary committee on delimitation, which calls for scrapping the 24th amendment and conducting the general election on previous constituencies.
There is also, apparently, more than a grain of truth in the ECP spokesman’s recent reservation that “those objecting to the delimitation… must have some personal issue.” It is alleged that both NA Deputy Speaker Javed Murtaza Abbasi and Minister for Privatisation Danyal Aziz, the head and convener of the parliamentary committee respectively, have lost their old constituencies as a result of the new delimitation exercise. Ahsan Iqbal distanced the ruling party from the committee’s recommendations, but only after the Commission had more or less rubbished them already. Otherwise, the party has yet to take note of the conflict of interest that is allowed to dictate terms on a matter of such importance.
Since the hearings of objections is already underway, the prudent way forward would be correcting the mistakes one by one instead of rolling back the initiative altogether. Parliament cannot interfere directly in the delimitation but it is tasked with providing the framework under which the exercise is to be conducted. It must, therefore, ensure that the process of addressing complaints is transparent and efficient, so the elections are held on time and on the basis of the new census. PML-N should also ensure that its senior parliamentarians are not toeing a line contrary to the party’s own position, and spreading doubts about the manner and timing of the general election.