Daily Times

The preliminary delimitations constituencies of National Assembly (NA) seats and those of the four provincial assemblies announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), have drawn wide criticism from almost all political parties and from across the country. There was criticism in the Parliament against this. Delimitations were proposed and a committee was formed to look into the matter.  However it amounted to nothing, first because the ECP decided not to cooperate. Secondly, Federal Minister Danyal Aziz, who was head of sub-committee of the parliamentary committee, criticised the ECP and Census Department, using harsh words which was not supported by other members.

The ECP has received more than twelve hundred individual objections against the proposed delimitations from across the country. The views of the complainant are being currently heard and the Commission is expected announce decision against the objections soon, after which the final delimitation of constituencies will be announced.

These objections are with regard to individual constituencies or groups of constituencies. There are however, some fundamental issues in the delimitations which the commission should address before finalising the process.

Under the Constitution, seats in the NA are distributed on the basis of population among federating units. Within a federating unit, seats allocated to it have to be divided into demographically equal constituencies. This equality of population is fundamental to the whole concept of direct and equal representation, as well as the concept of ‘one man, one vote’.

However, Election Act 2017 like its predecessor, Representation of People’s Act 1976, allow factors like physical features, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and public convenience and other cognate factors to be considered while demarcating the constituencies and gives a room to the delimitation authorities to vary the population of different constituencies by a margin of ten percent on either side.

A constituency representing less than four hundred thousand people, and another representing three times that number cannot be equal

It also allows up to a ten percent difference in population of different constituencies. That means that no NA or Provincial Assembly seat should have more or less than ten percent of the population quota for a seat in any assembly.

After the 2017 population census, the average size of a NA constituency, outside FATA and Islamabad is around 775,000, with a few thousands more or less from province to province. Islamabad’s average is 667,000 while FATA, which is over represented, gets a single seat for just 416,000 people. This is an issue must be debated. Sindh with 785,135 has the highest person to seat ratio, while Balochistan with 771,546 has the lowest.

Under that rule in the provinces, a National seat should consist of a population ranging  approximately between 700,000 to 860,000, with a couple of thousand more or less from province to province.

However in total disregard of this rule, the ECP has demarcated constituencies in such a manner that quite many constituencies cross that limit. And not just by five or ten percent, but seventy to eighty percent. Resultantly, the demographic gap between constituencies is such that some of them are three times bigger than others.

For example, proposed NA- 262, Kachhi-cum-Jhal Magsi, has a population of just 386,255. Similarly NA-37 Tank has 391,885, NA-1 Chitral has 447,362, NA-12 Batagram 476,612; NA-260 Nasirabad 492,609, NA 198, Shikarpur 543,207 and NA- 67 Jehlum II with 546,113 people only.

On the other hand, NA-35 Bannu, has a population of 1,167,892, NA 197 Kashmor 1,089,169, NA 258, Chaghi, Kalat Nushki, Shaheed Sikandarabad, Mastung 1,083,407; NA 220 Omerkot 1,073,146; NA 196 Jacobabad 1,006,297 NA 17 Haripur 1,003,031. There are numerous constituencies with a population greater than 900,000 and as many have a population smaller than 700,000. Such violations are not confined to the NA, and is evident in the provincial assemblies too.

Such gross disparity between population sizes of different constituencies of National and Provincial Assemblies is violation of the principal of ‘One man, One vote’. A constituency representing less than four hundred thousand people, and another representing three times that number cannot be equal. It would obviously mean that one person one constituency is as good as three in another, which is against the principal equality of citizens guaranteed in the constitution.

This has happened for the first time in the history of Pakistan. Never before have such demographically imbalanced constituencies been created. In its report on the draft delimitation of constituencies, the ECP says that section 20 of the Election Act 2017 bars it from crossing the district boundaries, which resulted in these imbalances.

A look at the section reveals that it is a word-for-word copy of corresponding section 9 of Delimitation of Constituencies Act 1974 which was the relevant law till enactment of the Elections Act 2017. When same wording of the previous law did not disallow crossing the district boundaries, then why does the commission think that these very words have different meanings in 2017.

The commission has misinterpreted the law and has given it meanings of its own, which have never been the intention of the Parliament. Under this law, the provincial government can change district boundaries at will, one or more districts can be merged or a district may be divided into as many as it wishes. The Election commission has to remove this imbalance, and constituencies in a province should be equal in size. A variation of 10 percent is allowed of course.

Besides creating imbalanced constituencies, this strange interpretation of law by the ECP has created disparities among various districts as well. Hafizabad, which has a population of 1,156,957 people has been granted just a single seat, while marginally larger Khushab has been granted two. Shikarpur’s 1,231,481 people have the same number of seats as Sanghar’s, which has more than two million.  The more you read the ECP documents, the more such astonishing it becomes.

The writer is a freelance columnist

Published in Daily Times, April 16^th 2018.