FAFEN voices concern over draft delimitation by ECP

ISLAMABAD: Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has expressed concern over the draft delimitation prepared by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), noting that more than one-fifth of constituencies exceed the 10 percent population variation, ARY News reported on Saturday.  

In a statement, the FAFEN said as many as 180 constituencies of national and provincial assemblies as proposed by the ECP do not meet the legal preferability of 10pc variation in population.

According to the watchdog, the move “undermines the principle of equal suffrage that was otherwise upheld by the Parliament through latest amendments in the Elections Act, 2017”.

According to the amendments enacted on August 4, 2023, after parliamentary approval, the Election Commission was expected to disregard district boundaries to ensure that the variation among the population of an assembly’s constituencies does not ordinarily exceed 1opc, FAFEN noted.

The watchdog said the variation among 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 (PA) seat quota for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was established at 355,270, Punjab 429,929, Sindh 428,432, and Balochistan 292,047.

“An analysis of the preliminary report of delimitation 2023 and draft lists of constituencies reflects that the parliamentary emphasis on minimizing the population variation was not extensively used to ensure the equality of votes in constituencies of an assembly”, the statement noted.

FAFEN said the recently added provision in the law was only employed in delimiting 11 National Assembly constituencies — six in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three in Punjab, and two in Sindh — and one Punjab Assembly constituency.

As a result, it said, the number of constituencies with more than 10% variation in population went up from 170 — 82 NA and 88 PAs — in the 2022 delimitation to 180 — 83 NA and 97 PAs — in the 2023 draft lists of constituencies.

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 watchdog said.

The proposed NA constituencies with more than 10% 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, in the statement, said it believes the issue of inequality of population among constituencies of an assembly has persisted as 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.”

Such inequalities in the constituencies’ population may potentially result in a greater number of representations by voters, the electoral watchdog said.

FAFEN also urged the ECP to direct the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to promptly publish on its website the census block-wise data of population as under Rule 12(2), voters would require this data for filing representations.