President Arif Alvi’s announcement of an election date, November 6, well within the 90-day limit prescribed by the Constitution, suffers from a number of problems, with the result that while the general elections do not take place on the designated day, the confusion over the date does not come to an end. Indeed, there is every possibility that it might grow worse. There are two major obstacles to the date being accepted. First, though the Constitution prescribes that where there is a premature dissolution (as there was in this case), the President shall set the date of the general election, it also prescribes that the President shall exercise his functions in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister. The question is thus both valid and worrisome, who gave the President the requisite advice? Then there is the question of the status of the Election Law amendment which made the Election Commission of Pakis responsible for giving the date. Indeed, more than one statement by caretaker Prime Minister Anwarul Haq Kakar explicitly puts the weight of the government behind the amendment.
It remains to be seen what view of the matter is taken by the Supreme Court if the matter is agitated before it. However, it should not be ignored that the failure to give a date is taking place because of what seems a slender excuse, and some specious reasoning. The obligation of the ECP to carry out delimitations after each census is laid down in the Constitution, but it is surely not intended that this obligation should trump the obligation to hold elections in 90 days. The noise being made, that the economy must be fixed first, has got two problems. First, it is not to be fixed by unelected caretakers, but by an elected government. Second, there are not supposed to be conditions for postponing elections. That is supposed to be the bedrock on which the Constitution is built.
A strange paradox has come into play. With a date given, the ECP is supposed to issue an election programme, after which it should stop updating electoral rolls, and while it may continue carrying out delimitation work, the new date should be for elections according to the previous delimitations. The President may have given a date, but that does not mean the uncertainty will end.
