With barely a few days left in the general election, turnout for the democratic exercise in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) is expected to be lower compared to previous elections owing to multiple factors.
Populace of the northwestern province, which is home to sixteen per cent of National Assembly seats of the country, might not turn out to vote in large droves come February 8th due to an increase in terrorism, target killings, and large scale arrests of the supporters and leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
K-P was rocked with 631 instances of terrorism in the preceding year, 2023, and so far this year 23 incidents of terrorism have been reported in the southern and tribal districts of the province. In this regard, a retired official of the armed forces, Mehmood Shah, who is an independent security expert, told the Express Tribune that increasing attacks in the province, especially by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), suggest that election day will be violent.
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“Even in the last general election, the TTP targeted ANP, and this time around we have seen the organisation target Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam Fazl (JUI-F). Therefore elections will need to be conducted with a foolproof security plan to avoid any untoward incident,” he elaborated.
However, whether the security plan is foolproof or not, the security expert predicted that due to the threat of terrorism, the populace in the southern and tribal districts of the province would not turn out in large numbers.
Apart from the terrorism threat, the crackdown on PTI, after the May 9th protests, might serve as a deterrent for voting as well, especially for those who support the party and wish to vote for it. This deterrence might also have exacerbated ever since the founding chairman of the party, Imran Khan, was convicted in two separate criminal cases. In this regard, Dr Shah Nawaz, assistant professor in the political science department of Islamia College, Peshawar, was of the view that turnout in the election would indeed decrease in the upcoming general election compared to the 2018 general election. “There are other reasons for why the turnout may be low as well. Firstly, the extremely cold weather in the upper regions. Secondly, people have lost hope in the system and might not wish to vote,” Dr Nawaz explained.
It is pertinent to mention that election turnout has already seen a downward trend in the province. As per the Election Commission of Pakistan, the turnout in the elections held in the country in 2013 was more than 55 per cent, however, in the 2018 general elections, the turnout decreased to between 50 to 51 per cent.
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