The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday said that overall voters'' turnout in recently held general election was 55.02 percent, which was around nine percent more than 2008 general elections - 44.11 percent. Former Secretary ECP, Kanwar Dilshad said it was amazing that voters'' turnout in election 2013 and 1977 general election were the same.
He further explained that it had another similarity that the result of 1977 was unacceptable for political parties and again in 2013 political parties were showing their reservations on rigging in the elections. The Commission said the least turnout was recorded in NA-42, where the turnout was as low as 11.57 percent, while the highest turnout of 84.77 percent was recorded in NA-191 Bahawalnagar. In NA-42 (Tribal Area-VII), Muhammad Jamaluddin, a candidate of Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam (F) secured 3,468 votes. Nomination papers of 17 candidates were accepted by the Returning Officer and total number of registered votes was 108,056.
A candidate of Pakistan Muslim League-Z Muhammad Ijaz ul Haq (Bahawalnagar-IV) won the election by scoring 79,306. 17 candidates contested the national assembly''s seat there. Total registered voters are 326,972. The percentage is recorded 84.77 percent. According to the data available, it has been estimated that around 46.2 million voters polled their votes in general election throughout the country. Nawaz Sharif''s PML-N secured 14,865,000 votes followed by PTI, which bagged 7,679,000 votes. The previous ruling party PPP could manage 6,855,000 votes while MQM got 2,458,000 votes. Surprisingly, independent candidates also got 5,820,000 votes.