How Malakand prepares battlefield for July 25 polls

Largest division of K-P was once regarded as a PPP stronghold

PESHAWAR: It is an old saying that the election results of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) Malakand division – once known as mini Larkana due to its support for the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) – has a big impact on the formation of governments in the province.

According to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) data, the total registered voters in the division stand at over 1.53 million and the proportion of men and women among these voters is roughly equal.

Malakand division contributes 10 MNAs to the National Assembly. These include three seats from Swat, two from Lower Dir, and one each from Upper Dir, Buner, Shangla, Malakand.



The division also comprises 23 K-P Assembly constituencies. There are three provincial seats from Upper Dir, five from Lower Dir, eight from Swat, two from Shangla and two from Malakand.

In Upper and Lower Dir, the MMA and the PPP have maintained their old positions, while the ANP also has a vote bank in the district. The MMA, however, may face tough competition from other parties and independents the alliance of religious parties is internally divided on the award of party tickets.

Here, one MMA member is actually running as an independent.

The PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is also contesting election from the same district and some of the prominent JI members are in the run from the MMA’s platform. In district Swat political parties like the PTI, the ANP and the PML-N are likely to offer a tough fight to each other.

For the NA-3 Swat seat, PML-N chief Shehbaz Sharif has successfully gotten the MMA’s support against the PTI candidate, while on the NA-2 Swat seat, the PML-N’s Ameer Muqam, the ANP’s Dr Haider Ali, and the PTI’s Murad Saeed will lock horns.

Muqam is also contesting for the NA seat from Shangla, which he is expected to win.

Buner witnesses the worst differences in the MMA as here the JI stands under the banner of the PML-N. Political analysts believe that on the NA-9 Buner seat, the JI and the PML-N's 'joint candidate' Kamran Khan and the ANP’s Haji Abdur Rauf may stand first and second in the general election.

It is expected that the PTI’s disgruntled candidate Mian Moinuddin and Sher Akbar Khan, the electable who joined the PTI, may give tough time to the other. Sher Akbar is a former member of parliament from the JI.

The four candidates on the NA-9 seat are Kamran Khan, ANP’s Haji Rauf, the PTI’s Sher Akbar, Mian Moinnuddin – the disgruntled PTI member running as an independent candidate – and the JUI-F Istiqbal Khan.

Buner district has three provincial seats – PK-20, PK-21, and PK-22. For PK-20, Bakht Jehan, a joint candidate of the PML-N and the JI, and the ANP Bakht Afsar Khan are expected to have a tough contest. The MMA’s Abdul Ghafoor also has considerable influence in the constituency.



For PK-21, Engineer Nasir Ali is the 'joint candidate' of the PML-N and JI, while the ANP has fielded Qaiser Wali and the PTI has given a ticket to Syed Fakhar Jehan. All three are likely to have a tough contest.

For the third provincial seat of PK-22, the ANP’s former parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak, the PML-N-JI joint candidate Raj Wali Khan and the PTI Abdul Kabir Khan are the prime contenders. Political analysts claim that the real contest is between the ANP and JI-PML-N candidate.

Security forces in Malakand have been put on the high alert and police and armed forces have started joint patrolling. More security personnel will be deployed at sensitive polling stations on July 25.