By-election: Deceased lawmaker’s son wins Shangla seat

Khan manages to bag 18,342 votes while his rival Muhammad Yar Khan of ruling Awami National Party polled 12,332 votes.

SHANGLA: Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid’s candidate Muhammad Rishad Khan won the by-election for the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seat PK-87 Shangla-1 which fell vacant after the death of his father Muhammad Zahir Shah Khan on November 28, 2010.

Khan managed to bag 18,342 votes while his rival Muhammad Yar Khan of the ruling Awami National Party polled 12,332 votes.

The constituency has 145,000 registered voters, including 59,000 females, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan. Voting started across 102 polling stations in the constituency at 8am and ended, without any incident, at 5pm. Forty-three polling stations were declared sensitive, while another 44 declared highly sensitive for the by-election.

Women voters largely refrained from casting the ballot due to the traditional customs prevalent in the region. A total of eight candidates were in the run, of which four belonged to various political parties while as many were independent candidates.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th,  2011.