Nearly half of voters in next polls are young

With 56.86m, they make up 44.22% of total 128.58m

ISLAMABAD:

The number of young voters has increased to almost half of the total in the upcoming general elections scheduled for February 8 -- almost 60 million of the overall 128.58 million.

With 56.86 million, young voters make up 44.22% of the total in 2024 against 43.82% in 2018. They include 34.5 million male voters and 25.6 million female ones.

A total of 15 million youngsters, who have turned 18 since 2018, will cast their votes for the first time. The sheer large number of young voters has begun to attract the attention of political parties for the upcoming general elections.

Convincing these young people to vote has become a major target for political parties. According to documents available with The Express Tribune, 23.5 million people aged between 18 and 25 years will be eligible to cast their votes. They include 14.8 million male and 9.32 million female voters.

Read Female voters hold key in K-P election

Similarly, there are 33.3 million eligible voters aged between 26 and 35 years including 17.89 million male and 15.44 million female ones. The documents show that there are 10.7 million voters aged between 18 and 35 years in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 31.8 million in Punjab, 11.3 million in Sindh, and 2.4 million in Balochistan. In the federal capital, there are 472,000 young voters.

According to the documents, the large number of young voters in 10 major cities of the country in terms of population has opened a new field for political parties. It will be difficult if not impossible to win by convincing them to vote.

There are 2.79 million voters aged between 18 and 35 years in Karachi, 2.83 million in Lahore, 2.26 million in Faisalabad, 460,000 in Hyderabad, 1.37 million in Rawalpindi and Multan each, 1.23 million in Sialkot and Gujranwala each, 99,200 in Peshawar and 37,700 in Quetta.

Analysts say that these young people can potentially make a major impact on the outcome of the next general elections. If not by simply casting their votes, they can make a key difference by influencing others using social media platforms.