Elections in October 2023 after fresh census: Ahsan

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said the next general elections will be conducted through the Population and Housing Census in October 2023 and asked the opposition to rejoin parliament to make the census a success.

He made these remarks while inaugurating the training of master trainers for the 7th Digital Population and Housing Census here.

Since the government came to power in April this year, the process of population and housing census has been expedited and all the relevant stakeholders, including the IT Ministry, National Telecom Corporation, National Database and Registration Authority and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) have been on board under the umbrella of the Ministry of Planning Development.

“The parliament will complete its term in August 2023 and the next general elections will be based on this census,’’ said the minister and advised the opposition to come back to parliament instead of demanding fresh elections.

The minister said Balochistan and Sindh were affected the most by the recent floods and both the provinces will take another six to eight months to recover from the floods in order to go to polls.

Fresh elections can only be held in October after the fresh census is completed in April or May and then another four months will be required by the Election Commission of Pakistan to hold fresh delimitations based on the new data, remarked the minister.

He said the government had spent Rs34 billion on this Digital Census and in order to ensure good governance, the government needs to have accurate data on the population and its distribution.