The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Wednesday published a preliminary list of 16 provincial constituencies in tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on which the general elections are scheduled to be held this year. According to the details released by the commission, Bajaur district will have three provincial seats in KP province, Mohmand district, 2 seats, Khyber district 3 seats, Kurram district, 2 seats, Orakzai 1 seat, North Waziristan, 2 seats, South Waziristan, 2 seats and Frontier Regions will have one seat.
A delimitation committee constituted by the ECP has carved out the constituencies in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas on basis of the sixth population census conducted in 2017.
The ECP said that as per initial timelines, the draft list of constituencies was required to be published by October 5, 2018, whereas the final publication was scheduled for December 5, 2018, but the process got delayed due to legal lacunae.
The commission said that utmost efforts were made to make sure that the variation among the constituencies is kept within the permissible range of 10 percent within a district. However, due to inevitable geographic or demographic features of three districts, the range of 10 percent was exceeded.
The voters of these constituencies can file their representations from January 3 to February 1, 2019 while the period of hearing/decisions on representations is from February 3 to March 1 this year.
The ECP will publish a final list of constituencies on March 4 this year.
Meanwhile, the ECP has decided to review the electoral lists under section 36 of Elections Act in order to make the lists updated and authenticated.
According to the commission, the exercise is aimed at ensuring that votes of the voters are registered as per their permanent or temporary addresses mentioned in the Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs).
This will provide an opportunity to voters to get their vote registered at any of the addresses of their choice mentioned in the CNIC for which forms can be submitted in the office of district election commissioner till February 28.