“HRCP insists that the Election Commission of Pakistan announce an election schedule promptly such that polls are held as close as possible to the stipulated 90-day period,” said a statement issued by Chairperson Hina Jilani after the meeting of the HRCP’s governing council on Saturday.

The statement comes amid the statements by the ECP to draw new boundaries by November 30. But the country’s top electoral authority has not given any election date so far.

“The delimitation of constituencies must also be completed quickly and efficiently and under no circumstances used as an excuse to delay the elections any further,” the HRCP stated.

The human rights commission was also concerned by the scope for manipulating the electoral process allegedly by institutions such as the National Database & Registration Authority and urged the ECP to guard against such a possibility.

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It was related to reports that the government was changing the heads of the institution ahead of elections—a move many believed would be akin to tampering with results.

Jilani’s statement also highlighted the “increasingly polarised environment,” in which religious and sectarian divisions were being exacerbated reportedly to carve out artificial political space for far-right parties such as the TLP.

“The divisive and violent tactics used by such parties to build their political identities—particularly at the expense of religious minorities and sects—is eating into organic political and civic spaces. The continuing terrorist violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also made political parties more apprehensive about campaigning in the province—a pattern we have witnessed before and must not go through again,” it said.

The commission went on to add that in addition to ensuring credible elections take place, the caretaker government should respond to the issues for which citizens were mobilising around.

“Apart from ensuring that free, fair and credible elections take place, the test of the current caretaker government is to see not only whether it will protect and respect people’s right to protest peacefully, but also whether it will respond to the issues that ordinary citizens are mobilising around,” it said.