President Dr. Arif Alvi has requested a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja “to fix an appropriate date” for the general elections.
President Alvi seeks meeting with ECP chief: On August 9, not long after Shehbaz Sharif, a former prime minister, forwarded the report, the president gave his approval for an early dissolution of the National Assembly. Clause 5 of Article 48 mandates that the nation hold general elections within 90 days of that point.
The Pakistani President’s official account on the microblogging website X (formerly known as Twitter) announced the news.
According to Article 48(5) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the President must set a date for the General Election of the Assembly that is at least 90 days from the date of dissolution.
The statement mentioned that the Chief Election Commissioner has invited the President for a meeting today or tomorrow to establish an appropriate date.
The Result Compilation System for ECP
According to Radio Pakistan, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has begun using a result compilation system to share election results quickly.
Sikandar Sultan Raja disclosed this information at a conference in Islamabad that he presided over.
The conference announcement disclosed that the system would facilitate rapid transmission of provisional results from the presiding officer to the returning officer through a mobile app.
Additionally, it will assist the returning officials in compiling provisional results and ensuring correct vote numbers.
The meeting unveiled that the system had undergone a rigorous simulated exercise to confirm its functionality. This process instilled the Election Commission with complete confidence in the system’s performance.
The group also looked at local constituency developments related to election preparations.
General elections are delayed.
Following the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announcing the initiation of a fresh delimitation of constituencies aligned with the outcomes of the 2023 digital population census, expectations are rising that the scheduled general elections in Pakistan for this year will likely face postponement by several months.
The Council of Common Interests (CCI) approved the inaugural digital Population and Housing Census 2023 earlier this month. When there were rumours of disagreements among coalition allies, then-prime minister Shehbaz Sharif called a meeting of the CCI to decide what would happen with the census in 2023.
The clearance raised concerns that the elections would unavoidably face delays, as the ECP would require time to reinitiate the delimitation process.
Last Monday, Senate Chairman Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani confirmed that the upcoming general elections would take place following the conclusion of the delimitation process based on the results of a new census.
Notably, it’s important to mention that significant delays have occurred in the elections for Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This is due to the dissolution of both provinces’ legislatures in January of this year, with their respective caretaker governments assuming responsibility for managing the affairs of the provinces since then.