ISLAMABAD: The Trust for Democratic Education and Accountability –Free and Fair Election Network (TDEA-Fafen) launched a comprehensive election information portal on Wednesday on which the election record of more than 62,506 can be accessed.

The portal was launched due to the unavailability of consolidated election related information at a single forum. Users can draw self-analysis of the data and cross examine the information of candidates.

The portal has complete information on the national and provincial assemblies from 1970 to date, including of by-elections and provides insight into the history of political parties, their alliances and electoral boycotts as well as information on critical and the safe seats of the political parties.

Moreover, it provides a complete list of contesting candidates from 1970 onwards. One can search the election records of more than 62,506 candidates on the portal.

The portal also contains the records of more than 7,300 unique constituencies of national and provincial assemblies. Each constituency’s record can be searched with complete information and historical timeline. The portal also shares the analysis based on geographical clustering of constituencies, including changes in the vote-shift, top three political parties, registered voters and the turnout. This portal will also keep the records of all future elections to be held in Pakistan.

Addressing the launching ceremony, TDEA-Fafen Chief Executive Officer Shahid Fiaz stressed the need for using technology for improved democracy, while Fafen’s General Secretary Sarwar Bari highlighted the initiative made by TDEA-Fafen for bringing transparency in the democratic process. The designing and finalization of the portal took over one and a half years.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2018