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Thursday March 28, 2024

General elections on July 25

By Mumtaz Alvi
May 27, 2018

ISLAMABAD: The 2018 general elections will be held on July 25, as President Mamnoon Hussain signed the summary sent to him by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), proposing July 25-27 as the possible poll dates.

A cursory look at the last three general elections shows that the upcoming electoral exercise will be held amid rising temperatures and this, according to experts, can negatively impact the voter overall turnout. But they believed a lot will depend on how the political parties will hold their election campaigns. Already, three major political parties, namely the Pakistan People’s Party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf are gearing up for the poll bout. With the poll date fixed, the cantors of caretaker governments in the Centre and in the four provinces are yet to be decided.

The nation-wide electoral exercise for the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies will be held on the same day. There are several records related to the upcoming elections, like for the first time, nearly 106 million registered voters will be eligible to take part in polls. The final electoral rolls could be furnished only after the holding of the belated national census, which was last held in 1998. Similarly, the elections are to be held after a key constitutional amendment, which envisaged merger of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa along with the Provincially-Administered Tribal Areas.

The general election held on October 10, 2002 had yielded 41.8 percent turnout, whereas the turnout in next elections on February 18, 2008 was recorded at 44.1 percent. However, voters showed great interest in exercising their right to vote in 2013 elections, conducted on May 12, as the turnout shot up to a healthy 55.02 percent. Interestingly, the 1997 elections had even showed below 40 percent turnout, to be precise 36.00 percent, though polls were held on February 03, which is deemed as a conducive environment for voters to come out and take part in polling activity.

Amid speculations, the Election Commission had, a few days ago, sent a summary to President Mamnoon proposing holding of the 2018 general elections on any date between July 25 and 27. Under Section 57 (1) of the Elections Act, 2017, the president holds the authority to announce the date for elections in consultation with the Election Commission. The five year constitutional term of the National Assembly and the Punjab Assembly will end on May 31 while the Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan assemblies will complete their terms on May 28.

Under the Constitution, elections for the National and Provincial Assemblies are to be held within 60 days following the day the term of the assemblies expires, otherwise, the electoral exercise used to be conducted in the past within 90 days. Of about 106 million registered voters, 59.2 million are male and 46.7 million female voters, showing an ever increasing gender gap of over 12.5 million, which despite several drills could not be significantly reduced.

Punjab, the biggest province in terms of population and number of seats in the National Assembly, has 60.6 million registered voters – 33.67 million among them are male and 26.99 are female voters. Needless to say, the largest province will hold again the key to any political party forming the government in the Centre.