Mint Explainer: Pakistan dissolves National Assembly ahead of elections

livemint.com:

Mint takes a look at the situation in the crisis-hit country, including the election and when it will take place. • Last week, Sharif announced that the National Assembly would be dissolved on Wednesday. According to established procedures, a caretaker administration will take over the reins of government during the election campaign.

• These elections are likely to be highly contested and controversial. To begin with, the country’s most popular politician, Imran Khan, has been disqualified from contesting the election after he was convicted on a corruption charge. He was also arrested and is being held in Attock jail.

• Pakistan’s powerful military, which clashed with Khan during his tenure as Prime Minister, is also accused of exerting pressure on Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) by engineering defections from senior leaders. • Khan’s arrest on corruption charges in May had triggered widespread protests. Given his popularity, observers of Pakistani politics worry that the military’s efforts to stack the deck against Khan may lead to public backlash and a political crisis.

• There are also concerns about when the elections will be held. Ordinarily, an election would have to be conducted within 60 days of the dissolution of the Assembly. However, since PM Sharif did so prior to the end of the Assembly’s full term, the elections must now be held within 90 days.

• There’s an additional complicating factor: the census. Pakistan conducts a census every five years and then carries out a delimitation of constituencies. Once the census is approved by a body known as the Council of Common Interest, Pakistan’s election commission is bound to redraw constituency boundaries.