The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Wednesday issued the lists of preliminary delimitation of constituencies.
An official statement issued by the poll organizing authority stated that the preliminary report and map of constituencies can be viewed on the ECP’s website — https://www.ecp.gov.pk/.
The electoral watchdog further said that the publication of preliminary constituencies will continue for 30 days till October 26. While voters of a constituency can approach the ECP if they have any objection to the delimitation.
The election watchdog said that it is mandatory that the person raising an objection must be from the relevant constituency. It also added that objections raised through courier, post, or fax will not be accepted.
Under the original delimitation schedule issued by the ECP on Aug 17 — ten days after the notification of census results — the initial delimitation exercise was to be completed on Oct 7 and preliminary proposals for delimitation along with the report were to be published on Oct 9.
However, on Sept 1, the ECP announced squeezing timelines of the delimitation exercise by 14 days to complete the process on Nov 30, instead of the scheduled Dec 14.
The development would pave the way for the election commission to hold polls in the last week of January.
According to a statement issued by the ECP, the Preliminary Constituency Report along with Form 5 has been published for public information.
Preliminary report of delimitation
Based on the initial delimitation, the population distribution in the National Assembly constituencies is as follows: Balochistan has 930,900 voters, followed by 913,052 voters in Sindh, 907,913 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 905,595 in Punjab, and 787,954 in Islamabad.
The National Assembly consists of 266 general seats and 60 seats reserved for women. Ten seats have also been reserved for non-Muslims.
In the provincial assembly constituencies, the figures show Punjab leads with a total population of 429,929, followed by Sindh with 428,432, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 355,270, and Balochistan with 292,047.
As per the report of delimitation, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, the share of seats in the national and provincial assemblies have been worked out on the basis of the final results of the 2023 census.
“The population of the province/area has been divided by the total number of general seats and the average population or quota per National Assembly seat was obtained. Similarly, the population of a province was divided by the total number of general seats allocated to the provincial assembly to obtain a quota per seat.
“In calculating the total number of seats, a fraction of 0.5 and above was generally taken as one seat, and a fraction below 0.5 was ignored. Due to the peculiar situation in Balochistan, more than one district has been clubbed. Similarly, few clubbings have also been made in other provinces where necessary,” it said.
