As many as 60.6 million voters exercised their right to vote in Pakistan’s 12th general elections on February 8, 2024, nearly 5.8 million more than 2018 elections when 54.8 million had cast their votes, according to a Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) report released on Wednesday.
Despite the increase in the absolute number of voters, the turnout dipped from 52.1% in 2018 to 47.6% in 2024, primarily due to an increase in the number of registered voters from 106 million in 2018 to 128.6 million in 2024, following a record addition of 22.6 million between the two elections, the report stated.
“In addition, the harsh winter in parts of the country, fears of violence and terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan as well as an uncertainty about the conduct of elections may have also adversely affected the turnout,” it added.
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The report is based on the Form 47 (Provisional Consolidated Statement of Results of the Count) of 264 National Assembly constituencies acquired from the official website of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
According to FAFEN, lowest turnout stood in KP and the highest was in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
The turnout in KP declined from 44% in 2018 to 39.5% in 2024, in ICT from 58.3% to 54.2%, in Punjab from 56.8% to 51.6% , in Sindh from 47.2% to 43.7% and in Balochistan from 45.3% to 42.9%.
Among 264 constituencies, the highest turnout was 70.9% recorded in NA-214 Tharparkar-I while the lowest was 16.3% in NA-42 South Waziristan Upper-cum-South Waziristan Lower.
While overall turnout declined by 4.5 percentage points, the highest decline was in Punjab where turnout dropped by 5.2 percentage points, followed by KP (4.5), ICT (4.1), Sindh (3.5) and Balochistan (2.4).
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As per the report, the increase in the number of women turning out to vote in 2024 as compared to 2018 was greater than the increase in the number of men who cast their votes in 2024 as compared to the previous general elections.
As many as 2.3 million more women turned out to vote in 2024 as compared to 2018 when 21.7 million women had cast their votes. On the other hand, as many 1.09 million more men turned out to vote in 2024 as compared to 2018 when 32.9 million men had cast their votes.
“The number of votes polled by men and women will slightly increase when the ECP makes available the gender disaggregated data of the 10 National Assembly constituencies where the Returning Officers did not separately record the votes polled by men and women,” FAFEN said.
Unlike GE-2018, none of the National or Provincial Assemblies’ constituencies recorded female turnout that was less than 10 percent of the total polled votes, the report stated.
The highest women vote share was 49.5 percent in NA-1 Chitral Upper-cum-Chitral Lower.