The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday defended the variation in population of various constituencies in its initial delimitation report, stating that it aimed at ensuring parity between populations of constituencies within a district, not the province.
In a statement, the electoral body said it felt it appropriate to clarify certain “misunderstandings” in the analysis of its preliminary delimitation by the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), which it did not specifically name. Noting that under Article 51, 266 National Assembly seats had been allocated to the provinces on the basis of their population, it said: “Keeping in view the seats allocated to the provinces and their population, their quota was worked out on the basis of which seats were allocated to each district under Rule 8(2) following which, keeping in view the population of the districts and the number of their seats, the delimitation was carried out.”
It said the non-governmental organization had failed to regard districts as a unit to determine the seats while analyzing the variation in population size of constituencies. “Rather, the quota of the province was taken as a unit and the basic administrative unit i.e. the district was ignored, which has created ambiguity,” it argued. Additionally, it said, there are other principles mentioned in Section 20 of the Elections Act, 2017, including administrative unit and homogeneity, which were considered during the initial delimitation.
It noted that sections 20(3) and 20(4) of the Elections Act called for the ECP to record its reasons for any difference in population between constituencies exceeding 10 percent, adding these were outlined in the preliminary delimitation report. Maintaining there was a difference of over 10 percent in only 64 constituencies, it said the facility to file a representation was provided in law and rules to correct any errors in the initial delimitation. If an error were found in the initial delimitation that is not allowed by law, it would be corrected during the hearing of the objections, it added.