CCI being convened to approve 2023 census results

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has been asked to move for the Council of Common Interests (CCI) for approval of the 2023 census results. If the census is approved by the Council, the elections will be delayed.

Informed sources in the Planning Ministry told The News that the meeting of the Council of Common Interests is expected to be convened this week. It may be held on August 2. The census authorities have informed the Planning Ministry that the digital census 2023 has been completed and compilation of the result has also been done and now it is ready for the approval of CCI. Approval by the CCI means the publication of census results. Once the census is approved and published as per the Constitution, the elections are to be held on the basis of the latest published census.

The government has been told by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics that the entire process of the census 2023 has been completed. Now it is the constitutional duty of the government to put the matter before the CCI for approval.

This CCI decision, however, will have a direct implication on the timing of the upcoming general elections. In case the CCI approves the census and allows its publication, the general elections would not be possible in October or November this year.

Article 51(3) of the 1973 Constitution clearly envisages that the seats in the National Assembly shall be allocated to each province and the federal capital on the basis of population in accordance with the last preceding census officially published.

The MQM, which is a part of the ruling PDM coalition, insists that the next general elections should be held on the basis of the latest population census. In a press conference addressed on Monday, the MQM leader Khalid Maqbool said that the MQM wants an election on the basis of fresh transparent population census. The MQM has already said that it is in consultation with its legal and constitutional experts to get their advice on whether the elections could be held on the basis of 2017 census when the process for the new census has been completed. If the government decides to hold elections on the basis of a new population census, there will be a consequent constitutional and legal requirement for the delimitation of constituencies. The process of delimitation of constituencies is a few months long project to be done by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

Interestingly, the PMLN leaders in the past were also heard talking about the next general elections on the basis of a new population census but now they advocate for elections in October or November on the basis of the 2017 census.

In January this year, the PMLN leader and Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal asserted that the general elections in Pakistan are only possible after the population census and consequent delimitation of the constituencies. “Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan himself had decided in the April 2021 meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) that the new elections would be held only after the process of population census,” Iqbal was quoted by the media as saying.

There are apprehensions and analyses being discussed in politics and media about the possibility of delay in the next general elections. In case the new census is approved by the CCI, it would become a reason to delay the general elections.