Pakistan poll body hints can’t hold general elections before May 2023

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday cited a census-related setback and hinted it could not hold general elections in the South Asian country before May 2023, local media reported. 
The statement came hours after ousted prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party held protests outside ECP offices, accusing its top official of being biased against the party and not taking equal action against all the parties in the foreign funding case. 
Last week, Khan told a news conference that Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja was deliberately acting against his party and demanded his resignation. 
The top ECP official dismissed the demand while talking to a local news channel, saying he was working in the best interests of the country and would continue to do so. 
The ECP said “it received a letter on April 18 from the Ministry of Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives, stating that the seventh population census would commence on August 1 and its results would be received by December 31,” Geo News channel reported. 
As a result, the ECP said it would be constitutionally bound to hold elections based on the new census instead of the 2017 population count, which is used to conduct polls nowadays. 
The election commission said it would start working on delimitation from January 2023 after receiving the new census data, according to the report. 
It would take the ECP at least four months to demarcate new constituencies and only then the elections could be held.