A chance for introspection

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Low turnout
The October 16 by-elections to six constituencies of the National Assembly have been marked by a significantly low turnout that has highlighted the voters’ tendency and a not-so-good track record of political parties’ electoral alliances.
The poll outcome shows that there seems to be a discernible pattern in voters’ choice to vote for a candidate whose political platform matters little when it comes to the polling station level.
For example, the Sunday’s by-elections were significant from the level of political polarization and a plethora of other social and economic issues facing in the country. There were close contests on a number of seats, but the turnout rate did not come up to expectations, which should work to wake up the political elites from their deep slumber.
Elections in the country in the past, whether they are general elections or by-polls, have recurrently had an average voter turnout ranging between 45 and 50 per cent. There have always been massive differences over voters’ turnout among the electoral partners which have thrown up unexpected results.
In fact, voter turnout is considered the most important for the legitimacy of democratic elections anywhere in the world, and Pakistan’s elections are known for little care by the voters to go the polling stations and exercise their democratic right to a choose a representatives to the parliament.
It is also crucial to determine who wins an election, whether it is because of the party’s preferences or the voters’ tendency, or whether other factors have influenced the outcome.
Going through the election record of the country, there is a great deal of variation in the turnout across the country.
The recent by-polls held amid a heightened political temperature in three provinces can by no means be termed a futile exercise, though former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan bagged six of the seven constituencies he was contesting himself, as they provide a much needed space for the political parties to review and overhaul their political agenda.
For the low turnout, analysts hold the political parties responsible, as the component parties of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) half-heartedly moved about the by-polls and failed to bring out their voters to cast votes as per their mutual understanding with other allied parties.
In NA-31, Peshawar, and NA-24 Charsadda, Imran Khan faced ANP’s stalwart Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour and its provincial president Aimal Wali Khan, respectively, while on NA-22 Mardan, PDM’s joint candidate and JUI-F leader Maulana Mohammad Qasim was fielded.
Despite the fact that all mainstream political parties, which have been part of the PDM, either directly took part in the election campaign or announced support to PDM’s candidates, but they were in no way successful to mobilize their voters as par the party’s plans. And, there the outcome was low turnout, political observers say.
While the overall ratio of balloting in Mardan was slightly higher with 32 percent and slightly better as compared to the rest of the two constituencies, the mostly unexpected outcome is feared to create distrust among the PDM allies.
In Peshawar the turnout was recorded at a 28.28, while lowest turnout was recorded in Charsadda 27.27 percent, where the scion of Khudai Khidmatgar movement’s founder Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, alias Bacha Khan, was contesting the first polls of his political career, and the low turnout reinforced the fact that political legacies have been losing the ground.
Similarly, the outcome of by-elections in two National Assembly constituencies in Karachi including NA-237 in Malir and NA-239 in Korangi was also blamed on poor turnout.
In fact, one of the major reasons associated with low turnout is that voting in the country has never been taken as a compulsion or a basic democratic right by the voters.
Political scientists and independent electoral monitoring organizations consider domestic issues and security reasons as important factors leading to a low turnout.
This is obvious from the KP’s by-poll results, where among 1.45 million eligible voters only over a 0.3 million turned up to cast their votes. There is much food for thought to review all factors and reasons behind the low turnout and improve the electoral scenario in the future elections.