PTI vote-bank decreases in NA-4 despite victory

PESHAWAR: Though the candidate of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Arbab Amir Ayub, won the NA-4 by-election by a margin of 20,860 votes from the runner-up, the party’s vote-bank deceased by about 9,500 compared to the 2013 general election.

As per the unofficial result of the National Assembly constituency, NA-4 Peshawar by-election released on Friday, it was notable that the votes of the PTI were reduced compared to its performance in the last general election. Both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Awami National Party (ANP) managed to increase their share of the vote in comparison to their tally in 2013.

In the 2013 general election, the PTI candidate had secured 55,134 votes and the PML-N’s Nasir Khan Musazai had obtained 20,412 votes. ANP’s Arbab Ayub Jan had obtained more than 15,000 votes. Arbab Ayub Jan has now died while his son, Arbab Usman, has joined the PPP. The NA-4 seat had fallen vacant after the recent death of PTI’s dissident MNA Gulzar Khan.

According to the results of all 269 polling stations, the PTI candidate bagged 45,734 votes while ANP’s Khushdil Khan as the runner-up polled 24,875 votes.

PML-N candidate, Nasir Musazai was placed third with 24,790 votes. He was involved in a neck-and-neck contest for the second position with ANP’s Khushdil Khan for hours before losing to him by just 85 votes.

Until Thursday night, the PML-N candidate was placed second, but he was overtaken by the ANP nominee when the results of the last 10 polling stations came in. Questions were being asked whether the JUI-F members had voted in full strength for the PML-N candidate after the party’s decision to withdraw its candidate in favour of the PML-N.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s Asad Gulzar Khan remained fourth in the by-election. He obtained 13,200 votes. Asad Gulzar’s father had won the NA-4 seat in the last general election.

The candidate of Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan Allama Dr Muhammad Shafiq Ameeni was placed a surprising fifth in the by-election. He obtained 9,935 votes, outvoting Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) Wasil Farooq Jan who polled 7, 668 votes.

As expected the independent candidates failed to do well in the by-election. The Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) and Milli Muslim League supported candidate Liaqat Ali Khan received 3,789 votes and was placed seventh in the contest. The other independent candidates fared poorly with Muhammad Tanveer getting 366 votes, Maulana Waheed Alam bagging 280 votes, Ziaur Rehman polling 197 votes and Dr Mubashir Khan receiving 143, Samiullah 153 and Farhan Qadir 82 votes.

As per the Election Commission of Pakistan, a total 133,960 votes were polled in the by-election, which is 33.67 percent of the total registered 397,904 votes.

Out of the polled votes, the Election Commision said that 131,298 votes were found valid and 2,662 votes were rejected.

The NA-4 constituency in rural Peshawar was a very tough area which was once badly hit by militancy. It is surrounding on three sides by the tribal areas of Khyber Agency, Darra Adamkhel in Frontier Region Kohat and the Frontier Region Peshawar. The by-election was held peacefully and this showed that the militants have lost both in terms of numbers and vitality. The turnout wasn’t bad for a bye-election in which lesser number of voters make an effort to vote.  The participation of women voters with great enthusiasm also came as a pleasant surprise.