By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will chair a key meeting on Saturday to decide whether to approve the results of the country’s first-ever digital census, a move that could delay the general elections by at least six months.
The Council of Common Interest (CCI), a constitutional body that resolves disputes between the federal and provincial governments, will consider the approval of the 7th Population and Housing Census 2023, conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) with the help of the military.
The census, held from March 15 to April 15, 2023, used biometric verification and geo-tagging to ensure accuracy and transparency. It recorded a population of 242.5 million, an increase of 36.4 percent from the last census in 2017.
The approval of the CCI is necessary for the census results to be notified by the federal government and used for the delimitation of constituencies for the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies.
Observers said a group in the coalition government is pushing for a delay in the general elections and the move to get approval for the digital population census could reshape the political landscape of the country.
The government is expected to finalize the transition to an interim administration next week, while also unveiling the candidate for the caretaker prime minister, who will oversee the polls.
The elections could be postponed by several months, as the government seeks to align them with the latest census data, according to political and constitutional experts.
The experts said the caretaker and incumbent chief ministers have the constitutional authority to advise the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to delay the polls, citing Article 51(3) of the 1973 Constitution.
The article stipulates that the allocation of National Assembly seats to provinces and the federal capital should be based on the most recent census.
Upon the formal approval of the digital census, the forthcoming general elections will naturally align with the most recent census data, they said.
Prime Minister Sharif has publicly stated that the upcoming elections will be based on the 2023 digital census, but he added that the final decision rests with the CCI.
According to the ECP, the delimitation process will take four months to complete, while the election process will require another two months. This means that if the CCI approves the census results, the general elections scheduled for October 2023 will be postponed by at least six months.
The delay could have less political implications for Sharif’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which is facing a challenge from the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led by former cricket star Imran Khan.
The PTI has accused the PML-N of manipulating the census results to favour its stronghold of Punjab, which accounts for more than half of the country’s population and parliamentary seats.
The CCI meeting will be attended by Sharif and four federal ministers, as well as the chief ministers of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The finance minister, the law minister, the attorney general and other officials have also been invited as special guests.
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