The United States on Tuesday has urged Pakistan to hold ‘timely, free and fair’ elections that were earlier scheduled for later this year in the cash-strapped country but are likely to get postponed following the approval of a new census and drawing of new constituency boundaries.

US acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland spoke to Pakistan’s interim Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani on Tuesday and congratulated him on his appointment, according to a press release by the State Department. 

“They discussed broadening and deepening the US-Pakistan partnership on issues of mutual concern, including Pakistan’s economic stability, prosperity, and continued engagement with the IMF. Acting Deputy Secretary Nuland and Foreign Minister Jilani discussed the importance of timely, free and fair elections in a manner consistent with Pakistan’s laws and constitution,” read the release.

Expected delay in Pakistan national polls

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) earlier announced the schedule of new delimitations to be carried out as per the new census. The census was approved by Pakistan’s Council of Common Interest (CCI) in early August. 

The latest schedule published by the Electoral Commission of Pakistan (ECP) shows that fresh delimitation of the constituencies will take at least four months, making it impossible for the elections to be conducted in 90 days. The final publication of the new delimitation will be done on December this year, while the upcoming general elections were scheduled in November. The delimitations will be held across Pakistan from September 8 to October 7.

Notably, the Pakistan National Assembly has 342 seats– 272 of which are directly elected, 60 are reserved for women, and ten for religious minorities. According to the country’s constitution, at least 70 seats reserved for women and religious minorities are allocated to the political parties as per their proportional representation.

Under the constitutional guidelines, a caretaker regime is expected to hold elections within 90 days if the National Assembly is dissolved before its tenure – which is exactly what Shehbaz Sharif’s government did after ousting jailed cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan in a no-confidence motion. Former Senator Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has been designated as the newly appointed interim Prime Minister of Pakistan.

The cipher case

Pakistan has been embroiled in a political chaos since Khan’s ouster. The former PM was will continue to remain in judicial remand in the cipher case, in which he accused the US of engineering his ouster, as per the orders a special court.  This came a day after the Islamabad High Court suspended the three-year sentence in the Toshakhana corruption case.

Last year, Imran Khan alleged that the US orchestrated a plan to remove him from office and brandished a cipher at a public rally to back his claims. The US has time and again denied such allegations, terming them “categorically false”.

According to Khan’s then-principal secretary Azam Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief was allegedly “euphoric” after seeing the cipher and decided to use it to build an “anti-establishment narrative” on the back of a “blunder” committed by the US. “The cipher copy was retained by Imran Khan and the next day (March 10) when he asked for it, Imran Khan replied that he has misplaced it,” the confession statement said, adding that the PTI chief did not return the original cipher despite repeated requests.

(with agency inputs)

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