Round 2: By-elections to be held on nine seats

Five vacant National Assembly seats to be contested for.

PESHAWAR: By-elections will be held on five National Assembly and four provincial assembly seats in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on August 22, said a notification issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday.

According to ECP rules, candidates winning from two or more provincial or National Assembly constituencies have to decide on which seat they will take oath from. Nomination papers will have to be filed by hopeful candidates to returning officers from July 3 to July 9, which will be scrutinised between July 11 and July 17. Meanwhile, election tribunals will decide on appeals by July 29 after which a final list of candidates will be generated.

Provincial by-elections

The vacant provincial assembly constituencies include PK-23 Mardan-I, PK-27 Mardan-V, PK-42 Hangu-I and PK-70 Bannu-I.

PK-23 Mardan-1 fell vacant after former chief minister and Awami National Party leader Ameer Haider Khan Hoti chose his national assembly win over the provincial seat, while PK-27 seat belonged to independent candidate Imran Mohmand who was killed in the June 17 suicide attack at a funeral in Shergrah, which claimed 37 lives and injured over 40.

On June 3, PK-42 also fell vacant when unidentified gunmen shot down MPA Farid Khan of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Hangu.

On PK-70, a by-election is being held after former chief minister and JUI-F MNA Akram Durrani decided to relinquish his provincial seat for a seat in the National Assembly.

National Assembly seats

By-elections will be held on NA-1 Peshawar-I, NA-5 Nowshera 1, NA-13 Swabi-II, NA-25 DI Khan-cum-Tank as well as NA-27 Lakki Marwat.

PTI chief Imran Khan, who won by a large margin from former federal minister and ANP leader Ghulam Bilour, announced to relinquish NA-1 for NA-56, Rawalpindi.

The incumbent chief minister Pervez Khattak gave up his Nowshera NA-5 seat, while Speaker Asad Qaiser of PTI relinquished NA-13 to stay in the provincial assembly. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman won three NA seats - 24, 25 and 27 – and vacated NA-25 and 27.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2013.