Elections Act, 2017: FAFEN urges parties to take cognizance of inadequacies

ISLAMABAD: While acknowledging improvements in the contents and quality of the preliminary report as compared to the last delimitation published in 2018, the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has urged the political parties to take cognizance of inadequacies in some sections of the Elections Act, 2017.

A report released here, “FAFEN preliminary report about delimitation of National and Provincial Assemblies’ constituencies” has noted that there are some sections of the Elections Act 2017 restricting the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from delimiting electoral constituencies of equal sizes or keeping the variance of population among them under 10 percent as required by the law.

The report appreciating the government’s efforts to reform the electoral process has said that the election system will not improve without substantial improvements in the delimitation process to prevent an imbalance of population across electoral precincts and ensure representation of all geographical, linguist, ethnic and religious diversity in the elected bodies. Delimitation is one of the most critical mechanisms of allocation of political power to people by the state, and therefore, must be just, fair and transparent.

The FAFEN in its recommendations has suggested to the government that the delimitation principles provided in section 20(1) of the Elections Act 2017 in light of the ongoing and previous delimitation exercises. The reform must emphasize the principles of inclusion and equality to ensure representation of all geographical, linguist, ethnic and religious diversity in the elected bodies, rather than safeguarding the integrity of administrative units which are determined by the executive. This condition under the existing law restricts the ECP from containing the variance amongst constituencies of an assembly to a minimum (i.e. 10 percent) and thus ensuring equal-sized constituencies.

Similarly, the cognate factors must also be defined in section 20 (1) to minimize the discretionary space available to delimitation committees.

However, these are long-term reforms that need broader parliamentary consultations and approvals. In the short term, FAFEN recommends that the provisions of Rule 10 be brought in conformity with Section 20(3) of the Elections Act 2017 to ensure that the population sizes of the constituencies do not vary more than 10 percent across an Assembly.

Currently, the first proviso under Rule 10 (5) provides for calculating a district average of the population per seat to work out the variance among the constituencies. This proviso may be amended in a manner that the determination of variance among the population of the constituencies is based on an assembly-wide average of the population per seat. This amendment would help the Election Commission to strike a balance between the respect for administrative units and the population size of the constituencies as well as provide the public with a true picture of population disparities among the constituencies, reinforcing the need for long-term reforms.

Through an analysis of the preliminary report of delimitation, FAFEN has identified at least 82 (31 percent) National Assembly and 88 (15 percent) Provincial Assemblies’ constituencies which have a population that varies more than 10 percent of their respective regional quotas per seat (average population in a constituency) calculated under Rules 8 (1) and 8 (4) of the Election Rules, 2017. As many as 63 constituencies have 11 percent to 20 percent variance from the respective quota per seat, 12 constituencies have 21 percent to 30 variance and 11 constituencies have above 30 percent variance. The following table shows the number of such constituencies in each region and Assembly: For instance, NA-39 Bannu is the largest National Assembly constituency with a population of more than 1.2 million which is 1.5 times bigger than the average constituency population in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) 788,933, and almost three times the population of the smallest constituency NA-42 Tank i.e. 427,044. As many as eight NA constituencies have more than one million population in KPK. Intra-regional disparities in the population size of NA constituencies are more widespread in KPK than in any other province.

Around 48 percent of the NA constituencies in KPK have above 10 percent variance from the respective quota. Similarly, 38 percent Sindh, 24 percent Punjab and 19 percent Balochistan constituencies have more than 10 percent variance from their respective quotas. Amongst Provincial Assemblies, Balochistan has the highest percentage of constituencies (55 percent) that vary more than 10 percent from the provincial average population per constituency. The province is followed by KP (26 percent), Sindh (14 percent), and Punjab (four percent). The following table shows the largest and smallest constituencies in the National and Provincial Assemblies along with their quota per seat and variance percentage.

Furthermore, FAFEN also identified that the preliminary report of delimitation has altered the territorial limits of as many as 156 National Assembly constituencies as compared to 2018 delimitations while six constituencies of the erstwhile FATA have been merged with other constituencies and 110 constituencies have not been affected during the recent exercise.

Similarly, 46 out of 51 Balochistan Assembly constituencies, 72 out of 115 KPK Assembly constituencies, 242 out of 297 Punjab Assembly constituencies, and 50 out of 130 Sindh Assembly constituencies underwent territorial changes.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022