HYDERABAD, Jan 20 (APP): The Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said the general elections will be held in October this year after completion of the population census and subsequent delimitation of the constituencies.
Talking to the media at Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Jamshoro district, on Friday the minister said the census results would be published by April 30.
He added that later the ECP would take up to 4 months to complete the delimitation according to the new census. “The 2 processes will be completed in August when the National Assembly will complete its tenure,” he observed.
He recalled that a meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI), held in April, 2021, when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan was the Prime Minister, had taken a decision in that regard. The basis of the CCI’s decision was the Sindh Government’s objections to the authenticity of the 2017 population census, he told.
“Khan himself had decided in that meeting that the new elections would be held only after the census,” Iqbal maintained.
He reiterated that despite all the pressures being exerted by the PTI chief, he would not get the elections before October, 2023.
The Federal Minister believed that Khan was also aware of the technical issues which would not allow early elections.
“But I think Khan only wants chaos and uncertainty in Pakistan because he is working on some agenda,” he contended.
Responding to a question about holding elections in Punjab and KPK provinces after the dissolution of the tow provincial assemblies by the PTI, the minister said the ECP would have to take a decision in that regard keeping in view the constitutional question.
He asserted that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was fully prepared to participate in the early election and that his party would ensure that the PTI faced the same defeat which the party was rendered on January 15 LG elections in Sindh, especially Karachi.
He argued that not only the constitutional issue of the CCI’s decision about fresh census and delimitation before the general election was before the ECP, the commission would have to consider the country’s financial straits as well.
Iqbal said holding the election of provincial assemblies twice in a span of few months would require hundreds of billions of rupees in expenditures that the economy could ill afford.
“Even if for the sake of argument we agree over the early elections before the census, there will be another concern that if Pakistan has that fiscal space to put the country in uncertainty for 6 months?” he questioned.
He said a caretaker government which would be entitled to the policy-making would take charge for 3 to 4 months and even after that there was no guarantee that a stable government would take the reins after the election.
Iqbal pointed out that the whole world was going through a phase of financial crisis. He referred to the recent resignation of New Zealand’s PM over financial challenges, changes of governments in the UK, and inflation in the US and European countries to corroborate his assertion.
According to him, in the prevalent situation, the country could not afford to be without a decision-making government in the saddle for 4 to 6 months. “Therefore, we have no choice except to wait for October 2023,” he believed.
Commenting on the dissolution of the two provincial assemblies, Iqbal said Khan had not fired a shot on his feet rather on his head.
Replying to another question, the minister said a national government of the like which the country had never seen before was running the government.
He said all the democratic parties with a history of political struggles and governance were part of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) , adding that those parties represented all the four provinces of Pakistan. “The sitting government is like a broad jirga from all four provinces.
All political forces, except an obstinate and egoistic person, are in the coalition,” he noted.
He said the existing dispensation should continue till October for the sake of economic and political stability. But, he reiterated, Khan’s agenda was to create uncertainty and chaos in Pakistan.
The minister informed that PML-N’s chief and former PM Mian Nawaz Sharif would return to Pakistan to lead the party’s electoral campaign in the next general elections.
He expressed hope that the independent judiciary, which was not under any pressure, would provide justice to Sharif, claiming that his removal from the PM’s office in 2017 and subsequent conviction was a conspiracy to derail the country’s economic progress.
“That conspiracy was not against Sharif but against the future of Pakistan and the future of the CPEC which was crashed,” he said, adding that the incumbent government was reuniting the broken pieces of the CPEC project.
The minister during his visit to Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) inaugurated the varsity’s Science and Technology Park and also attended an event of MUET’s alumni.
