Balochistan sees highest turnout of voters

Except for the two National Assembly seats where results have been withheld, Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has issued results of the other 13 constituencies that went for by-polls on Thursday.
The commission has also compiled the voter turnout for the National and provincial assembly seats separately.

According to ECP statistics, only 22% voters came out to cast ballots for the two National Assembly seats NA-1 Peshawar and NA-13 Swabi in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) against 45% in the May general elections.

The turnout of voters for NA-48 Islamabad was second lowest after K-P’s two seats. It was only 32%. During the general elections in May this year, 62% voters came out to cast ballots.

For the six NA seats in Punjab province, NA-68, NA-71, NA-83, NA-103 and NA-177 overall turnout of voters remained 42% against 60% in general elections.

In Sindh province, 39.18% voters came out to cast votes for the three National Assembly seats of NA-235 Sanghar, NA-237 Thatta and NA-254 Karachi as compared with 54% in the general elections.
The NA-262-Killa Abdullah, the only national assembly seat of Balochistan that went for by-polls, turnout was 35.2% against 42% in general elections.

Provincial assembly seats
Interestingly, for the provincial assembly constituencies that went for by-polls, Balochistan had highest turnout of 49.42%. By-polls were held in three Balochistan assembly constituencies PB-29 Nasirababd, PB-32 Kachhi, PB-44 Lasbela. In the 2013 general elections overall turnout in Balochistan for provincial assembly seats was only 40%.

For the 15 provincial assembly seats of Punjab the overall turnout of voters was 36.75%  — much lower than the general elections in May when it was 58.52%.

In the four Sindh assembly constituencies where the by-polls were held, only 37.94% voters used their right while it was 36.63% for K-P assembly’s four seats.

Three months back in the 2013 general elections overall turnout for Sindh Assembly was 54.62% while for K-P it was 44.74%.

Among the provincial assembly seats that were contested on Thursday the highest turnout was in PB-32 Kachhi which was 70% as per the statistics put together by ECP. The lowest turnout was witnessed in Punjab Assembly seat PP-123 Sialkot at 18.33%.

< Express Tribune >