General elections in Pakistan, scheduled for later this year, will be postponed due to the implementation of a new census. The process of conducting the census and redrawing constituency boundaries is expected to take approximately four months, according to Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar in an interview with Geo News TV on Saturday. The decision to hold elections based on the new census was made during a meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI), which included representatives from federal and provincial governments. Tarar stated, “It was a consensus decision to hold elections under the new census.”
The seventh census has been completed, with the population count reaching 241.49 million, as stated in a statement from the prime minister’s office. However, new delimitations of constituencies are required for the elections, based on the updated census figures. Tarar estimated that this process would take an additional four months.
According to Muhammad Sarwar Gondal, spokesperson and member of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the department responsible for the census, the country’s constitution mandates that once the latest census count is finalized, the Election Commission of Pakistan must conduct new delimitations. Gondal explained, “If and when the government issues an official notification of the latest census results, it is binding upon the Election Commission of Pakistan to conduct new delimitations, after which the elections will take place.”
For more information, please visit www.aljazeera.com.
Link from www.aljazeera.com