Balochistan sees highest turnout of voters

ISLAMABAD: 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%.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2013.