Government in catch-22 over delimitation of constituencies

The government would be left with no legal option but to allow Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to carry out delimitation of constituencies on the basis of provisional census results if it fails to get the bill passed from Senate. The bill pertaining to delimitation of constituencies and reallocation of National Assembly seats has already been passed by National Assembly, but the Senate has yet to accord its approval with a two-third majority.
Senators from the Pakistan Peoples Party, the majority party in the upper House has not turned up in the House to vote for the bill in the previous three sessions when it was part of agenda of the day leading to a postponement. Talking to Business Recorder, former secretary ECP Kanwar Dilshad said the government has made a serious mistake by accepting the Pakistan Peoples Party's demand for verification of the census results in the Council of Common Interests (CCI) meeting.
He said that now the government is left with no option but to seek assistance of the PPP to get the bill approved in the Senate. If the PPP does not support the bill, and the President promulgates an ordinance for the purpose, the PPP senators then will vote against it in the Senate to strike it down, he said. Dilshad said that it is not possible for the ECP to carry out delimitation exercise on the basis of controversial census results as it would not be acceptable to several parties.
He said that the ECP has two options to conduct general elections on time if the government fails to get the bill passed from the Senate: either to hold elections on the basis of 2002 delimitations or move the Supreme Court for direction to carry out delimitation of constituencies on the basis of provisional census results.
He said that in both the above scenarios the exercise of next general elections would be delayed because it would be unconstitutional to hold elections on the basis of 2002 delimitations. He said that if the ECP moves to Supreme Court for a direction on the issue, then it would also delay the next general elections because the election commission requires at least six months for completion of the delimitation exercise and a further two months to make other preparations for the elections.
The government's tenure is ending on June 1, 2018 and under the constitution it cannot be extended even for a day after it completes its five year term, he said, adding that the Cabinet Division is bound to issue a notification for dissolution of the National Assembly the day the tenure is completed.
He, however, said that if the matter goes to the Supreme Court, then it may extend the tenure of the caretaker government for some weeks or months till the completion of the delimitation exercise, though there is no past precedent for this course of action.