"The seats in the National Assembly shall be allocated to each province, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Federal Capital on the basis of population in accordance with the last preceding census officially published," says Article 51 of the Constitution.
Kanwar Dilshad, former secretary Election Commission of Pakistan, said the census is a sensitive issue as delimitation of the constituencies and fair distribution of general seats among the provinces depends on it.
"Even if a single party rejects outcome of the census, this would put a question mark on the 2018 election results," he said, adding that all stakeholders should do their best to make the census transparent and accurate.
The ECP is responsible to carry out delimitation of the constituencies based on results of the census under Delimitation of Constituencies Act of 1974.
"All constituencies for general seats shall, as far as practicable, be delimited having regard to the distribution of population in geographically compact areas, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and public convenience and other cognate factors to ensure homogeneity in the creation of constituencies," says the Act.
Kanwar Dilshad, however, challenged the competence, expertise and will of the ECP to carry out the delimitation exercise in a fair manner.
Another former secretary ECP told this scribe that number of general seats for elections would remain the same as this is not linked to the census, but delimitation would be done to ensure a fair distribution of number of votes in each constituency.
As per constitution, at the moment there are 272 general seats for elections of National Assembly and they are distributed among the provinces on basis of the population. There are 14 seats in Balochistan, 35 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 148 in Punjab, 61 in Sindh, 12 in Federally Administered Tribal Areas and 2 in the federal capital.
Likewise, there are 51 general seats for provincial assembly in Balochistan, 99 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 297 in Punjab and 130 in Sindh.
Kanwar Dilshad pointed out that General Musharraf increased the number of National Assembly's general seats from 207 to 272 after getting approval from the Supreme Court as the constitution was held in abeyance at the time to appease his political allies including Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan Muslim League-Q. However Musharraf's changes were kept on in the eighteenth constitutional amendment.
Dilshad urged political parties to revisit this and evolve a consensus for fair distribution of seats that were increased during the Musharraf regime after the census through readjustment of the seats and delimitations of constituencies.
The former secretary said that if a major shift of population in any of the province is found during the census, then there will be an automatic demand for redistribution of number of seats that could result in conflict between the provinces and different political parties.
"Fair result of the census in each province, subsequent fair delimitation of the constituencies and redistribution of general seats among the provinces can only guarantee fair and free elections," he said.
Dr Arif Alvi, a member of Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms, told Business Recorder that issue of delimitation and increase in number of seats as a result of the census has not been discussed in the committee.
He said that it would be the responsibility of the government to evolve a political consensus after the census for fair delimitation of the constituencies across the country; otherwise veracity of the next elections would become questionable.
A senior member of the ECP told Business Recorder on condition of anonymity that the commission would require at least 10 months for fair delimitation of all the constituencies in the country after the result of the census is made public.
He said the ECP may take three to four months to complete the field work for the new delimitation of the constituencies, but after notification of the delimitations a long process of litigation begins that may consume five to six months of the commission.
About increase in number of seats, he said the ECP is not empowered to increase or decrease the number of general seats and this can be done only through amendment in Article 51 of the Constitution.
He also said that a constitutional amendment would be required to transfer general elections seats from one province to another, if need be depending on the result of the census.
The last delimitation of the constituencies was done in 2002 on the basis of the 1998 census and political parties had accepted the process with minor complaints during General Musharraf's regime.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017