Elections likely to be delayed as CCI approves Census 2023

ISLAMABAD: The Council of Common Interest (CCI) on Saturday “unanimously” the first-ever digital Population and Housing Census 2023.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called for a meeting of the CCI to address the fate of the census in 2023, considering the reports of disagreements among coalition partners.

There is a possibility that the general elections will be postponed by a few months due to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) requiring additional time to redo the delimitation exercise.

The meeting was attended by the chief ministers of all four provinces, along with federal ministers.

According to the latest census results, the country’s population stands at just under 250 million, with the population having surpassed 240 million. The PBS had completed the task of conducting a post-enumeration survey to verify the initial results of the digital population census in selected blocks of 48 districts.

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To ensure credibility, the PBS selected 2,500 blocks in the designated districts of the country to recheck the population count.

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Prime Minister Shehbaz stated a few days ago that the next elections would be conducted based on the data obtained from a fresh population census.