The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), had earlier announced that the assemblies would be dissolved on August 9, three days ahead of the completion of its five-year term, in an attempt to avoid holding elections within 60 days. In case of dissolution of assemblies, national or provincial, before time, elections can be delayed for up to 90 days.
On August 1, PM Sharif had stated that elections would be held on the basis of the latest census. Last Saturday, the Council of Common Interest (CCI), a constitutional body mandated to resolve power-sharing disputes between the federation and provinces, had approved the results of the 2023 digital census.
The ratification of the 2023 census by the CCI has made it almost certain that general elections may not be held this year due to the compulsory need for fresh delimitations of constituencies. Shortly after that, the federal government placed the responsibility of conducting polls, within the next three months, on the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The ECP, however, has already declared that holding general elections on fresh delimitation was not possible and that the exercise would require four to six months.
Pakistan interior (home) minister Rana Sanaullah said on a TV talk show in Tuesday that 2023 was not an election year. The minister reiterated that under the constitution another general election could not be held on the 2017 census results as they had been accepted “provisionally for a single time”.
“As soon as the constitutional requirement of delimitation is completed, then after that elections will be held,” he said, adding that the caretaker government, which has been empowered through legislation to run the country like an elected government, will complete this constitutional process.
Separately, Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif said that under the constitution elections are to be held within 90 days of the dissolution of provincial assemblies and the National Assembly is scheduled to be dissolved by August 9 evening. Speaking to CNN, Asif said that the 90-day deadline cannot be missed, but “under some conditions the election commission has the power to delay it”. He elaborated that this could happen due to an election problem or a census problem or an electoral role problem. But this delay could only happen “for a month or two, but not beyond that”, he added.
When the anchor inquired whether approval of the 2023 census could cause delays in the holding of polls, Asif said he couldn’t speculate on it at the time but it was a possibility. “I won’t rule that out,” he remarked.