Since the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has declared that it is no longer possible to hold elections on the existing delimitation after the new census, the process of new delimitation will be completed by the middle of December, after which it is no longer possible to hold elections within 90 days, because the new delimitation will take time and the law does not allow that the new census After the census, elections should be held on the old constituencies. It is incomprehensible that when all the parties involved in the previous government were aware of this, then why the census process was not completed four months ago, by accepting the results of the census, all the political parties themselves opened the door to prolong the elections and now these parties are making statements to mislead the people.
Elections should be held within 90 days. It seems that legal and constitutional confusion was deliberately created to make timely elections difficult, the major responsibility for the delay goes to the PML-N, whose leadership did not complete the census process in time, after that the census and the latest delimitation are being cited as the reasons for the delay in the elections, the provisional results for the 2023 census in May were ready, if If the PDM government had discussed the issue with all parties and called a meeting to inform the CCI about the results several months ago, the way for timely elections would have been paved, but it seems that the PDM government was afraid of Imran Khan’s popularity, it was not sure that the people would vote for it and it was waiting for someone to vote for it. Imran Khan should be sacked, but is this a good and democratic tradition?
The delayed passage of the census seems to be an anti-democratic step in every respect, in which the PPP is also involved because Sindh has serious reservations about the current census, on which no one is ready to talk, but since the PPP is a symbol of the federation, it may be difficult for it to talk only about Sindh, otherwise the blind and deaf also know that the current census. Injustice has been done to the Sindhi people, but the latest census figures were agreed in the CCI meeting on August 5, in which Murad Ali Shah was also present and other ministers were also present. Then in the kind of caretaker cabinet that has emerged, Sindh’s representation is negligible, the appointment of a large caretaker cabinet is also a matter of concern.
A caretaker government is necessary to keep day-to-day affairs, law and economy on track and ensure timely and fair elections, but it also requires equal representation of all provinces. Therefore, a 24-member cabinet, which includes departments like national heritage and tourism, is unnecessary which will increase expenditure, the size of the cabinet should not have been more than 7 people. In this regard, the caretaker prime minister, during his first cabinet meeting on Friday, made an excellent statement that he and his team do not have a ‘permanent mandate’, the caretaker information minister also remarked that the caretakers do not intend to prolong their stay.
After 90 days, all people, including the Prime Minister, should resign because they are unelected people, only a newly elected government has the right to rule the people and not unelected. Although the fact is that it is no longer possible to hold elections before February, any delay beyond this date can lead to a new constitutional crisis, because senate elections are going to be held in March, without elected assemblies, senate elections will not be possible. The caretaker government should minimize the delay in the elections, while the ECP should announce a final date for the general elections so that the economy does not weaken further due to uncertainty, hopefully the ECP will announce elections in the first week of December or January and the process of new delimitation will be completed immediately.
Caretaker government and delay in elections
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