The census authorities have been given until May ’15 to vet and reconcile the results, but can they remove the glaring controversies by the extended deadline is an open question.
By Muhammad Ali
ISLAMABAD: While the government and opposition are in talks over how soon to conduct the general election, it seems increasingly unlikely that the results of the national population census can arrive in time to hold the election before October 2023.
Under the law, the Election Commission of Pakistan must complete delimitation of electoral constituencies for the national and provincial assemblies before the upcoming general election.
Earlier due to conclude on April 30, the nationwide census exercise has now been allowed 10 more days to finish, the target date being moved to May 15, 2023.
The decision came the other day at an important briefing held by the Population Council at Islamabad for key government leaders and political players of the country.
However, while 28 political parties from across Pakistan including all members of the ruling Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) were invited to the meeting, conspicuous by its absence from the list of invitees was former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
The development comes against the backdrop of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s PDM and Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party holding talks over how soon to conduct the general election.
The two sides have already held two sessions of parleys, and are scheduled to return to the table again early next week.
Worrisome as the schedule overrun of the census is, even more troubling are the reasons for this delay. Official sources say census results compiled so far show glaring anomalies, which threaten to deprive the whole exercise of trust and legitimacy.
Population census has always remained a controversial exercise in Pakistan and the digital census underway is no exception.
Population is a key basis for distribution of resources between provinces under the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award – as well as for their relative strength in the National Assembly.
These and other dynamics seem to incentivise at least some nationalist forces in provinces to overstate their respective populations to claim a larger share of resources.
Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal told reporters outside the Statistics Centre on Friday that there is a need to decouple the distribution of financial resources with the results of the population census as was done by our neighbouring country.
A former technocrat told Independent Pakistan that a census was undertaken in the 90s when Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi was the Prime Minister. The results showed the Sindh province more populous than the Punjab, and Jatoi’s home town showed a growth of over 327 percent. The results were scraped.
Former Economic Advisor Dr Ashfaque Hassan Khan said that there were incentives to overstate the population figures in Pakistan and the malpractice would continue until those incentives are removed from the equation.
Ahsan Iqbal further said that the first ever digital census so far counted 230 million population of the country. Now it has been decided that the population census timeframe would be extended up to May 15, 2023 in order to verify undercounting or overcounting complaints received from different parts of the country.
There are complaints that the census has failed to fully take into account the population of major urban centres such as Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, etc. House listing errors for apartment blocks are an area of particular concern in these areas.
The minister said that the government intended to launch a media campaign to create awareness among the masses about the importance of ensuring they are counted.
To a query about expected delays in holding elections owing to delimitation exercise, he said that the upcoming general elections could be held in October or November.
Under the law, if the Assemblies complete their tenures, the elections must be held within 60 days. However, if the assemblies are dissolved even a day or two short of completing their tenure, the general election can take place in 90 days.
The Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer from Karachi Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman said that the high-rise buildings in Karachi have not been fully counted. He argued that there are a total 42,000 high rise buildings all over the country, 32,000 of which are located in Karachi alone.
He opined that so far the Karachi population has been counted at 17.2 million but in reality it stands somewhere between 30 million and 35 million. He said his party would expose the forces interested in manipulating the census for their petty political interests.
He said that it was pity that the Karahi population was showing a meagre population growth, Larkana’s population had exploded by 25 to 27 percent.
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