Nearly impossible to hold elections under 2023 census: experts

KARACHI: It is too late now to hold the coming general elections on time under the 2023 digital census, say legal and political experts, given the time needed for reallocation of seats in the National Assembly and for the ECP to delimit constituencies in provinces.

Geo talkshow host Shahzeb Khanzada had asked Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on his show last night about the MQM’s demand that even if there’s a delay in the general election, it should be held under the 2023 census. The interior minister had responded by saying that the voter lists were near-updated and the matter of seat allocation in the National Assembly under a new census depended on a constitutional amendment which this government cannot do [it doesn’t have the required majority to do so]. According to the interior minister, that means that even if the census notification were done the allocation of seats would have remained the same in any case.

In a vlog published on YouTube, PILDAT President Ahmed Bilal Mehboob says “Constituency delimitation can only happen once -- under Article 51(3) -- there is a constitutional amendment and seats are allocated between provinces under a new census....In my opinion, there can be no fresh delimitation until the allocation of seats under Article 51(3) is made -- via an amendment.”

There seems to be an agreement here that it is much too late now to start any process of delimitation under a new census. Talking to The News, Supreme Court advocate Salman Raja emphasises that “the election cannot be delayed....if August is the clear time period for the ECP to figure out the election process that means there is not enough time to delimit constituencies.”

Raja explains that “the general expectation is that once there’s been a census it will be notified and that census will be used for allocation of seats between the provinces. If a census has been conducted and it has not been quashed through some legal route then...the allocation of seats between the provinces must take place on the basis of the last census conducted -- and notified. And then within each province the delimitation is based on the spread of the population within the province.”

Raising a reminder that “one of the arguments [used by the government] through January, February and March was that the elections [to the provincial assemblies] could not take place because the census was underway and the demarcation of constituencies etc couldn’t take place before its completion”, Salman Raja says that now though “if the [2023] census has not been notified yet then there’s not enough time to delineate and demarcate on the basis of the census results”.

In his vlog, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob says that while there have been questions on whether the coming general elections can “be delayed on the basis of not being conducted under the latest census” and what happens if “the caretaker government comes in and then proceeds to notify the census results?”, he is of the opinion that “since the National Assembly seat allocation cannot be done for the coming election [according to the new census] these elections will be held at the given time but under the 2017 census and based on the already delimited constituencies under the previous census.”

He adds that he does not think that any “caretaker government will try and notify the new census unless their aim is to cause a disruption. And even if that were so, I think the Supreme Court would interpret it as: no fresh delimitation without Article 51(3) being acted on”.

Can the election be delayed then? Salman Raja says no: “Given that the government has already violated the constitution by not holding elections to the provincial assemblies within 90 days, there should not be any further delay in the holding of the election....The court has said that elections have to be held and no delay can be had beyond the timeline given in the constitution. The government did not listen to this judgment. Now if the ECP goes by its past precedent of not abiding by court judgments, it could say there’s been a census and it hasn’t been notified etc but I think that is when the court will intervene -- even Justice Faez Isa’s court -- and say you have to hold the elections.”

What of the 2023 census then? For Salman Raja, “This is irregular and they should have acted on the 2023 census. They should have acted expeditiously. The ECP should have demarcated constituencies. Because none of that has happened, and cannot now happen since there isn’t enough time, then the best course for now would be to sit on the census, not notify it, hold elections according to the old census and then take it from there.”

Somewhat expanding what Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Geo regarding the voters’ lists in case of the election being held under the 2017 census, Salman Raja clarifies that if the election is held “on the basis of the old census that will only result in no change in the distribution of seats between each province but within each province every voter gets allocated to some constituency ...so no one gets disenfranchised. But the right of a province to a greater number of seats -- if the new census suggests that a province has had an increase in population -- that is what will get left out. But there seems to be no way to go around that now.”