The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), on Thursday, informed President Dr. Arif Alvi that free and fair elections in the country cannot be held until October 2022 as it requires at least four additional months for preparations.
“The ECP is an independent constitutional entity, entrusted with the sacred duty of organizing and conducting elections in terms of Article 218 (3) of the Constitution and to make such arrangements as are necessary to ensure that the election is conducted honestly, justly fairly and in accordance with law, and that corrupt practices are guarded against,” the ECP said in response to the President’s letter regarding early elections.
The Election Commission said that delimitation is one of the foundation steps towards general elections, the work on which remained in quandary due to the delay from the government.
It pointed out that the number of National Assembly constituencies had reduced from 272 to 266 after the merger of the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the reduction of seats in tribal areas from 12 to six.
The ECP said that these circumstances demand fresh delimitation, which was not possible in the absence of official census results. It said that the chief election commissioner had written a letter to Imran Khan on 7 May 2020, inviting his attention to the issue and seeking his intervention to get the official results notified.
The commission also wrote letters to other relevant quarters including the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs as well as secretaries of the Senate, National Assembly, and the Bureau of Statistics.
“The process of delimitation finally began after the official census results were notified on 7 May 2021, but it was stopped after the government announced that it would go for the fresh digital census,” the ECP said, adding that the commission had also written letters to the government on 30 December 2021, and 21 January 2022, urging it to expedite the census process, which went unheeded.
Earlier, President Arif Alvi had asked the ECP to propose dates for holding general elections under Article 224 (2) of the Constitution.
The development comes days after National Assembly Deputy Speaker, Qasim Suri, dismissed the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan and the dissolution of the lower house of the parliament by President Alvi.
