ISLAMABAD: With the complete support of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), the Senate in Pakistan has finally closed the option for early election by approving the 24th Constitutional Amendment, signed into law on Wednesday. The amendment will also help secure holding of Senate elections in March next year.

All majority parties voted in support of the amendment except for the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), which went against it. The voting was held through division. As many as 84 votes cast their votes in favour of the amendment while only one vote of a lone PML-Q MP was cast against it. The National Assembly passed the amendment bill on Nov 16, 2017.

The bill remained stuck in the Upper House, as the majority opposition force, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), expressed reservations on the provisional results of the census and demanded a third-party validation of 5 per cent blocks.

Last week, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi met parliamentary leaders of in the Senate and assured them that their demand would be implemented. Only then, the opposition agreed to support the bill.

The passage of the bill will not change the 272 seats strength of the National Assembly.

It will decrease nine National Assembly seats (seven general and two women seats) of Punjab, and will add to five seats (four general and one women seat) of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), three seats of Balochistan (two general, and one woman seats) and one of the federal capital.

The number of seats for Sindh and tribal areas will remain the same. The bill allows new delimitation of constituencies for the general elections 2018 on the basis of the provisional results of the six population census 2017.

There have been serious apprehensions about the holding of Senate elections in March 2018 amid political demands and unconfirmed reports of possible dissolution of assemblies before March to hold early elections.

The 24th Constitutional Amendment makes it mandatory for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold 2018 elections on the basis of newly allocated distribution of National Assembly seats among the provinces for which the exercise of delimitation of constituencies as per 2017 provisional census results has to be done.

ECP sources said that after the passage of 24th Constitutional Amendment now there is no possibility of early elections that Imran Khan has been demanding during the recent weeks.

These sources said that the constitutional amendment has re-allocated the National Assembly seats share among the provinces on the basis of provisional result of 2017 census. As per the new census and on the basis of re-allocation of NA seats, these sources explained, the ECP has to do the delimitation of constituencies on the basis of which the next elections will be held.

The exercise of delimitation will start soon and the ECP expects to complete it by end April 2018 to ensure that the next elections are held on time.

Although the ECP wanted this constitutional amendment to get through by November 10 this year to avoid any delay in 2018 election, a standoff between the government and the opposition delayed the process which ultimately completed on Tuesday.

The amendment has been finally approved by the Parliament after 39 days of the deadline set by the ECP but Commission sources are positive about the completion of the delimitation work well in time to ensure that the elections are not delayed.