ECP ready to hold general elections: secretary

Islamabad: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) secretary on Thursday announced that they are fully ready to hold general elections in the country.

In a statement, the ECP secretary stated that if the federal government approves the new census findings, they will decide in accordance with the law.

"We sent the electoral reforms committee more than 60 recommendations. The electoral reforms committee agreed with almost all of ECP's suggestions". 

The secretary stated, "However, the formal announcement for the acceptance of the recommendations is yet to be made."

Earlier, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) Convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui on Monday rejected the PDM government’s decision of holding elections on 2017 census.

Siddiqui said during a press conference that Karachi had a population of about 30 million, up from the 2017 census's estimate of 14.9 million.

The census results, he declared, would not be accepted by his party.

After Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah declared that the government would not notify the results of the recently concluded census because they were not accurate and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) demanded at least four months to complete the delimitation process, the leader of the MQM-P announced that he was opposed to the move.

The census is carried out after every ten years, but because the most recent one was contentious, it was decided to perform another one to resolve concerns and carry out a new delimitation procedure, according to Siddiqui.

According to Siddiqui, the government's tenure would end in August. "Every effort has been made to maintain peace in Karachi. One of our primary requests is for a new census.