PESHAWAR: Parliamentarians from North and South Waziristan “categorically rejected” the latest move by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to allocate a specific number of seats to the country’s tribal districts and frontier regions in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly.
“The ECP specified provincial assembly seats for FATA [erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas] on the basis of the controversial 2017 census at a time when almost all of the North Waziristan tribal district families were living in IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] camps. I will vehemently raise the issue inside and outside parliament for our due rights,” Mohsin Dawar, Member of National Assembly (MNA) from North Waziristan, told Arab News.
He said that he had approached officials of the Bureau of Statistics -- a body which oversees the census -- who told him off the record that IDPs families were not included in the census population.
The ECP had allocated the provincial assembly seats on the basis of the recent population census in Pakistan which was conducted in 2017.
According to the figures of the census -- compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics -- the population of the erstwhile FATA stands at five million as compared to 3.2 million of the 1998 census.
Located in the northwest of the country, the tribal region witnessed a lot of militant violence after international forces occupied Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Consequently, Pakistani forces had to launch a string of clear-and-hold military operations to flush out insurgent groups from the area and destroy their militant training camps along with communication and logistical facilities.
After restoring some stability in the tribal belt, the country decided to include the region and its population in the mainstream by announcing its merger with the KP province.
However, this required several administrative and political initiatives, one of which was taken by the ECP on Wednesday when it apprised the provincial assembly about the amended number of seats.
According to the ECP’s announcement, Bajaur and Khyber tribal districts have been awarded three seats each in KP’s provincial setup, while Mohmand, Kurram, North, and South Waziristan districts have been given two seats each.
Orakzai is the only tribal district --- along with the frontier regions --- that has got only one seat in the assembly.
When approached for comments, lawmaker Ali Wazir from the South Waziristan tribal district told Arab News that he categorically rejects the ECP's decision and the accesses provided to the two volatile districts.
“I will register a strong protest on the floor of the house because the basis (the 2017 census) under which the share of seats are allocated were totally biased. I will mobilize people against this injustice,” Wazir said.
He recalled that the 2017 census was conducted at a time when almost one million people were displaced from South Waziristan.
It merits mention that the ECP's decision was taken in line with article 106 of the constitution -- amended through the 25th amendment last May and final hour promulgation of an ordinance to -- avert the disenfranchisement of contiguous tribal regions.
In the backdrop of the amended article, the KP Assembly will have 145 seats, including 115 general, four for minorities, and 26 for women.
This way, the erstwhile FATA will now have 21 seats, including 16 general, one reserved for non-Muslim, and four for women.
According to an official at the ECP who wished to remain anonymous because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media, the elections for these provincial assembly seats from FATA would “most likely be held in June this year and the notification in this connection will be issued in March".
Irfanullah Khan, an MPhil student from Hazara University who belongs to the tribal district, predicted that the years to come would be more challenging for the merger process of the tribal districts with KP in a sense that the ECP would revise the electoral rolls to update voters’ list before June this year.
“The ECP should expedite the process and prioritize the tribal districts to make sure that the upcoming provincial assembly elections are held in a more transparent manner,” Khan said.
Maulana Jamaluddin, another MNA from the South Waziristan tribal district, said that the main source of contention had emerged in the wake of the “controversial 2017 census.”
He said that he has been complaining that the 2017 census was not conducted in a transparent mannee because most of the population of his constituency were IDPs in other districts of the country.
He vowed to mobilize people of South Waziristan to protest against the ECP's move.
“How are you conducting a census at a time when houses were empty and people were displaced,” the enraged lawmaker questioned.
All the parliamentarians said that they would demand a fresh census in North and South Waziristan tribal districts to ascertain the exact number of people in the two militancy-hit regions.