ISLAMABAD: The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), while analysing the initial delimitation report of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), has said that as many as 180 constituencies of the national and provincial assemblies as proposed by the ECP do not meet the legal preferability of 10 per cent variation in population, undermining the principle of equal suffrage that was otherwise upheld by parliament through its latest amendments in the Elections Act, 2017.
According to the August 4, 2023 amendments, the ECP was expected to disregard district boundaries to ensure that the variation in the population of an assembly’s constituencies does not ordinarily exceed 10 percent. This variation in the population of constituencies may be identified by comparing the population of a constituency with the average population per seat of an assembly, also called quota per seat. The quota is calculated by dividing the population of a province, as determined by the last census officially published, by the number of seats of that province in national or provincial assemblies, as provided in the Constitution.
The quota for each National Assembly (NA) constituency for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was calculated at 907,913, Islamabad Capital Territory 787,954, Punjab 905,595, Sindh 913,052 and Balochistan 930,900. Similarly, the provincial assembly seat quota for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was established at 355,270, Punjab 429,929, Sindh 428,432, and Balochistan 292,047.
Fafen’s analysis of the preliminary report of delimitation and draft lists of constituencies says that the parliamentary emphasis on minimizing the population variation was not extensively used to ensure the equality of votes in constituencies of an assembly. According to Fafen, the recently added provision in the law was only employed in delimiting 11 National Assembly constituencies – six in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three in Punjab, two in Sindh and one Punjab Assembly constituency.
As a result, the number of constituencies with more than 10 per cent variation in population went up from 170 – 82 NA and 88 PAs – in 2022 delimitation to 180 – 83 NA and 97 PAs – in the 2023 draft lists of constituencies. Fafen’s analysis says: “This means that more than one-fifth of the total constituencies demarcated do not comply with Section 20(3) of the Elections Act, 2017”. The proposed NA constituencies with more than 10 per cent population variation included 35 constituencies in Punjab, 22 in Sindh, 21 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and five in Balochistan. Similarly, the PA constituencies included 30 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 26 in Punjab, 25 in Balochistan, and 16 in Sindh.
Fafen believes the issue of inequality of population among constituencies of an assembly has also persisted since the ECP did not update Rules 10(4) and 10(5) of the Election Rules 2017 to reflect the spirit of Section 20(3) provisioned by the recent amendment that reads, “It shall not be necessary to strictly adhere to the existing district boundaries in exceptional cases.”
