The initial census data released by the Pakistan Board of Statistics already shows how much the country has changed since the last census in 1998. From a substantial increase in the total population to changes in the provincial proportions of the population to continued urbanisation, Pakistan is a very different country from what it was two decades ago. The problem now is to reflect this changed country in next year’s general elections. The new election reforms, recently passed by the National Assembly, mandate that the Election Commission of Pakistan carry out a fresh delimitation of constituencies after every census. The final census report, however, will not be completed till April 2018 and the ECP requires at least eight months to carry out the entire process of delimitation. The federal government and Inter-Provincial Coordination Committee have agreed to a proposal allowing the ECP to use provisional census data. Under the circumstances, this may be the only workable compromise. At the least, the proportion of seats in the National Assembly allocated to each province can be amended to reflect the findings of the new survey. Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Fata and the Islamabad Capital Territory should all get more seats at the expense of Punjab, the only province whose share of the total population has decreased in the last 19 years.
There is still much the ECP will not be able to do. There isn’t enough time to do a district-level delimitation, which by law must be completed four months before the elections. Given that elections are expected to be held in late July next year, and the PBS doesn’t expect to complete its work till April, there is little that can be done about this. What the government should do is ensure as much census data as is available is made available to the ECP as soon as possible and then allow the full data to be used for the elections in 2023 for another delimitation of constituencies. The government should also give the ECP to increase the total number of seats in both the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies. The current numbers are based on the 1998 census and our population has increased by 57 per cent since then. For assembly members to effectively serve their constituents, there needs to be a large increase in the size of the assemblies. The Ministry of Law is proposing an amendment to give the ECP this authority and it should be done as soon as possible. The government and the ECP have only a few months to complete the gargantuan task of preparing for the elections and time is running out.