Daily Times

Despite an increase in the absolute number of voters, Pakistan’s voter turnout dipped from 52.1 percent in 2018 elections to 47.6 percent in 2024, the Free and Fair Election Network observer group (FAFEN) said in a report released on Wednesday that showed more women voted in this general election compared to five years ago.

As many as 60.6 million voters exercised their right to vote in Pakistan’s 12th general elections on Feb. 8, 2024, with nearly 5.8 million more people voting compared to 2018 when 54.8 million had cast their ballots.

“Despite the increase in the absolute number of voters, the turnout dipped from 52.1 percent in 2018 to 47.6 percent in 2024, primarily due to an increase in the number of registered voters from 106 million in 2018 to 128.6 million in 2024 following a record addition of 22.6 million between the two elections,” FAFEN said in a preliminary voter turnout assessment.

“In addition, the harsh winter in parts of the country, fears of violence and terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan [provinces] as well as an uncertainty about the conduct of elections may have also adversely affected the turnout.”

The FAFEN report was based on the analysis of Form 47 (Provisional Consolidated Statement of Results of the Count) of 264 National Assembly constituencies acquired from the official website of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

FAFEN said the regional disaggregation of voter turnout for National Assembly constituencies showed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had the lowest voter turnout and Islamabad Capital Territory the highest. The turnout in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa declined from 44 percent in 2018 to 39.5 percent in 2024, in ICT from 58.3 percent to 54.2 percent, in Punjab from 56.8 percent to 51.6 percent, in Sindh from 47.2 percent to 43.7 percent and in Balochistan from 45.3 percent to 42.9 percent. While overall turnout declined by 4.5 percentage points, the highest decline was in Punjab where turnout dropped by 5.2 percentage points, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (4.5), ICT (4.1), Sindh (3.5) and Balochistan (2.4).

The gender-disaggregated statistics of polled votes indicate a male voter turnout of 51.6 percent and a female voter turnout of 42.6 percent. According to available data, as many as 24.05 women cast their votes in 254 NA constituencies as compared to 34.02 men in the same constituencies.

“Interestingly, increase in the number of women turning out to vote in 2024 as compared to 2018 is greater than the increase in the number of men who cast their votes in 2024 as compared to the previous general election,” FAFEN said.”As many 2.3 million more women turned out to vote in 2024 as compared to 2018 when 21.7 million women had cast their votes. On the other hand, as many 1.09 million more men turned out to vote in 2024 as compared to 2018 when 32.9 million men had cast their votes.”

The number of votes polled by men and women will slightly increase when the ECP makes available the gender disaggregated data of the 10 National Assembly constituencies where the Returning Officers did not separately record the votes polled by men and women, FAFEN said.

The decline in turnout as compared to 2018 was a “ubiquitous phenomenon” across major cities including the provincial capitals Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar and Karachi.

Among 264 constituencies, the highest turnout was 70.9 percent recorded in NA-214 Tharparkar-I, a desert region in the southern Sindh province while the lowest was 16.3 percent in NA-42 South Waziristan Upper-cum-South Waziristan Lower in the country’s tribal northwest.

Nearly 97 percent constituencies of Punjab, 70 percent of Sindh, 56 percent of Balochistan and 41 percent of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had an above 40 percent turnout, the election monitor said.