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Thursday March 28, 2024

Low turnout in six UCs by-polls

By Khalid Khattak
December 22, 2018

LAHORE: With low voter turnout, polling for by-election on general councillor seats in six Union Councils (UCs) of the provincial metropolis was held on Friday.

At most wards where the elections were held, a tough contest was observed between the candidates of ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) while some private candidates also contested the Local Government by-election.

Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had set up two polling stations, one each for male and female voters, in each of the six wards while polling continued from 8am to 4pm without any break. The number of registered voters at all these six wards was over 14,000 of which a very low number of voters exercised their right.

Punjab Police had the security responsibility in the local government by-election and had deployed policemen outside these polling stations. The by-elections were held against general councillor seat in ward number 3 of UC-65 (Islampura), ward number 2 of US-30 (Manzoorabad), ward number 4 of US-148 (Tajpura), ward number 4 of UC-224 (Pindi Rajpootan), ward number 1 of UC-168 (Gawalmandi) and ward number 4 of UC-172 (Bibi Pak Daman).

It is pertinent to mention here that Local Government elections in Punjab were held in October 2015 with PML-N, then ruling party, having maximum seats at UC level across the province. The usual election festivity was missing on Friday largely because the local government setup would be completing its tenure in October next year.

As per the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) stats, Pakistan has one of the lowest voters’ turn-out in South Asia, better than Afghanistan only, as far as general elections are concerned and when it comes to by-elections this turnout drops further.

A number of candidates talking to The News said the voter turnout was low as it was a working day and most people voted either early morning before leaving for jobs or before the polling closed by taking an early off from their jobs.

It is also important to mention here that the general councillor seats on which the by-polls were held on Friday either fell vacant because of demise of the elected councillors or resignation by the elected individuals in some cases.

As per the unofficial results, till filing of this report, the PML-N’s candidates Raheel Hussain from UC-172 and Amjad Hussain from UC-168 won the by-election beating the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf candidates.