Delimitation and Equal Representation of the Urban Vote

By Anjum Altaf

It should be obvious that alternative ways of drawing constituency boundaries can significantly influence electoral outcomes. An historical example can make the point: the 2003 redistricting (the term used in the U.S.) in Texas, spanning the 2002 and 2004 elections, changed the composition of its delegation to the U.S. Congress from 15 Republicans and 17 Democrats to 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats (1).

It is no wonder that redistricting is a hot issue in the U.S. whose fairness has been the subject of repeated Supreme Court reviews. There the deliberate manipulation of boundaries to influence electoral outcomes, termed gerrymandering, is along two lines – favouring one party over another, as in the case mentioned above, or attempting to reduce the representation of racial minorities (2).

In this context it is surprising to find no analysis of past practise in Pakistan nor much interest now that we are undergoing the process after a gap of nearly 20 years. This could suggest universal agreement on the fairness of the delimitation process in the country. Even so, one should be curious to know if any biases exist in past exercises and how they have evolved under changing demographics over time.

Continuing urbanization suggests the issue could be important with the distinct possibility that the urban population is under-represented in the legislature. Historical parallels can be employed again to underscore the relevance. The 1919 election in Germany is considered the first truly fair one because it was the first held after scrapping constituencies that grossly over-represented rural areas (3). In India, where about a third of the overall population is recorded as urban, only about 85 of the 543 constituencies for the Lok Sabha, or under 15 per cent, have a majority urban population (4, 5).

How can such under-representation of the urban electorate come about? Simply, by “splitting” the urban population into a number of seats most of which have rural majorities. This can be shown easily with an hypothetical example. Imagine a district with a population of 4 million including a city of 1 million and suppose the population per electoral seat is also 1 million yielding a total of 4 seats for the district. Constituency boundaries can be drawn such that there is a constituency with an urban population of 1 million and 3 constituencies with rural populations of a million each. On the other hand, the urban population can be split to yield the following 4 constituencies (populations in millions with U and R representing urban and rural shares, respectively) (i) .3U, .7R; (ii) .3U, .7R; (iii) .4U, .6R; (iv) 0U, 1R.

The urban population is fairly represented in the first case – 25% of the population having 25% of the seats. With the second set, it is completely unrepresented with no seats at all. The actual situation in Pakistan is likely to be one, as in India, where the urban population is considerably under-represented in the legislature.   

Asides from the fact that urban-based political parties have much to lose from dilution of the urban vote, there are other negative consequences of such under-representation, if it exists. First, the constitution guarantees each citizen a vote of equal value and under-representation devalues that of the urban citizen. Second, Election Commission guidelines stipulate that constituencies be demarcated such that homogeneity of the community is ensured. Urban and rural communities are, however, very heterogeneous and one can expect a representative dependent on a rural majority to neglect the interests of the rump of urban voters in his/her constituency (6).

It can be inferred from the above that unless cities and towns acquire a political voice commensurate with their numbers they will lack the attention they need to serve their residents nor get the resource allocations needed for national development. The latter is relevant since almost three-fourths of gross domestic output of the country now emanates from urban areas.

Over the years observers have noted the persistent dominance of “feudals” in legislatures, the term used loosely to denote members of notable families repeatedly elected on the basis of dependent clienteles that are much more a feature of rural than urban demographics. Since such rural clienteles are easier to control it is natural that the beneficiaries would not want the status quo to change in their constituencies. It is therefore reasonable to speculate that medium and small urban centers would be split almost entirely into constituencies with rural majorities, a speculation supported by their condition. Only a rigorous study can provide the evidence for a correction like the one that marked the beginning of fair representation in Germany.

It is also of interest to consider why delimitation or redistricting is so contentious in the U.S. and so ignored in Pakistan. It could be because there are easier alternatives available to the establishment and political parties to influence electoral outcomes in Pakistan – these include, rigging, bribing, inducing military takeovers, and outright dismissals of governments. No such measures are available to political parties in the U.S. forcing them to rely on indirect methods like redistricting and the Electoral College. It is therefore not a surprise that in the US the redistricting process has been retained under the political control of state legislatures while most other countries, including Pakistan, have  transferred it to the jurisdiction of neutral commissions.

This last observation raises a related issue meriting attention in Pakistan. Election laws stipulate that electoral constituencies should preferably lie within district boundaries which means that creating new districts perforce necessitates delimitation. Since creating new districts is a political prerogative in Pakistan one can speculate that it could have had underlying electoral imperatives. A retrospective study could test this hypothesis since the stated rationale of better governance advanced for the creation of new districts cannot bear the weight of objective evidence.

An analytical exercise seems warranted with the objective of ensuring that election outcomes reflect the popular will and that the preferences of voters are translated faithfully into policy outcomes. Both these are dependent on unbiased representation (7).

References

1. Handley, Lisa. “Challenging the Norms and Standards of Election Administration: Boundary Delimitation”  in Challenging the Norms and Standards of Election Administration (IFES, 2007), p. 59-74. Accessed at: https://ifes.org/sites/default/files/4_ifes_challenging_election_norms_and_standards_wp_bndel.pdf

2. Roth, Zachary. “Will the Court Kill the Gerrymander,” New York Review of Books, January 11, 2018. Accessed at: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/01/11/will-the-court-kill-the-gerrymander/

3. German Federal Elections, 1919. Wikipedia. Accessed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_1919 

4. Lall, Rajiv. “AAP and the Politics of Urbanization,” January 15, 2014. Accessed at: http://smartinvestor.business-standard.com/pf/Pfnews-221727-Pfnewsdet-Rajiv_Lall_AAP_and_the_politics_of_urbanisation.htm#.WmQ9G9WWbrd

5. Kumar, Sanjay. “Delimitation of Constituencies,” in The Hindu, September 17, 2001. Accessed at: http://www.thehindu.com/2001/09/17/stories/05172524.htm

6. Election Commission of Pakistan. “How to Demarch Constituencies,” 2017. Accessed at: https://www.ecp.gov.pk/frmGenericPage.aspx?PageID=3049

7. Verma, A.K. “Delimitation in India: Methodological Issues,” in Economic and Political Weekly, March 4, 2006. Accessed at: http://www.democracy-asia.org/resourcesondemocracy/Delimitation%20in%20India%20-Methodological%20Issues_akverma.pdf

The writer was dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS and is currently a fellow at the Consortium for Development Policy Research in Lahore, Pakistan. This opinion was published in Dawn on January 20, 2018 and is reproduced here with the author’s permission.

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From Notified Criminals to Denotified Offenders

A brief history of the tribal experience in the colonial and modern era

By Vikram Garg

Eviction and ‘Notification’

How do you subjugate a continent of humanity? For the British colonialists, the answer was ruthless aggression. Between 1774 and 1871, the British engaged the various Indian states in a sequence of brutal wars, known collectively as the Anglo-Indian wars [1]. These wars not only set the stage for the colonial occupation of India, but in many cases also resulted in vast, settled populations becoming nomads in their own land [2]. Displaced from the ‘mainstream’ of society, many of these nomads and tribes sought revenge. What was the British response? In 1871, the Criminal Tribes Act was passed. The Act notified certain tribes as being “addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offenses” [3]. Examples included, the Boyas and Dongas of Tamil Nadu, and the Bedras of Maharashtra, all of whom had risen up in rebellion against the occupation [2].

India: A View of People

And Why It Matters

Suresh Kalmadi has something to answer for to the Indian people for the chaotic run up to the Commonwealth Games. But given his belligerent stance it seems he feels he doesn’t have to. This would not be a surprise because in India many have gotten away with much more.

What I do find surprising, however, is that he has not even been called up for something that, in my view, no one should be allowed to get away with in this day and age. With reference to the lack of spectators at the Games, Kalmadi is reported to have said: “We are working on the children from schools, already steps have been taken in that direction…. And also from the low level of society, we have been distributing a lot of tickets.”

French Salons and South Asia

Maupassant provided us the opportunity to reflect on the social pecking order in South Asia and Kabir’s comment has pushed the door wide open. There is so much space for speculation that it needs a post by itself to fill. In doing so we can bring together a number of themes that have figured prominently on this blog – in particular those of modernity and democracy in South Asia.

A lot has been written about French salons and there remain disagreement on the details – I will choose selectively to motivate the discussion:

A salon is a gathering of intellectual, social, political, and cultural elites under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation.