Overseas Pakistanis to be excluded from second round of by-elections: ECP

E-Paper | April 24, 2026

Overseas Pakistanis to be excluded from second round of by-elections: ECP

Fahad Chaudhry Published October 20, 2018

Overseas Pakistani's will not be allowed to vote during the second round of the by-elections scheduled for Oct 21, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said on Saturday. — AFP/File

Overseas Pakistanis will not be able to vote in the second round of by-elections scheduled for Oct 21 because they were never registered by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), an ECP official told DawnNewsTV on Saturday.

By-elections for National Assembly constituency NA-247 in Karachi and the provincial assembly seats PS-111 Karachi and PK-71 Peshawar are to take place on Sunday.

Overseas Pakistanis had been entitled to vote for 35 constituencies in the by-elections held on Oct 14. The decision in this regard was taken on the directives of the Supreme Court by the ECP and trialed for the first time. Out of the 7,364 overseas Pakistani who registered for the programme, 6,233 had polled their votes through an i-voting software.

The ECP had decided to include the votes cast by the overseas Pakistanis in the first round of by-poll results after consulting with National Database and Registration Authority authorities.

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By polls 2018

Pakistan

Election campaign for second round of by-polls comes to a close

Overseas Pakistanis’ votes to be included in final by-polls tally, decides ECP

Deadline for overseas Pakistanis to register on i-voting website expires

M. Saeed

Oct 20, 2018 03:00pm

There are about 8 million overseas Pakistanis of voting age. But, only about 2,500 had voted in the recent by-elections. That makes a whole exercise grossly lopsided as billions of rupees had been spent. The facility needs further streamlining keeping in view the limitations of the vast majority of the oversees Pakistanis.

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Sheraz Ali

Oct 20, 2018 03:09pm

Pakistani living overseas dont know ground realities. I think this is wrong decision to giving voting power to Pakistani living overseas. If they want to vote then better come to Pakistan and show much how loyal to their country

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Ayesha

Oct 20, 2018 04:45pm

It's strange how ECP is making all these decisions , isn't it for parliament to debate and discuss overseas voters rights and whether to allow or not to allow votes and what rules to draft? PM should take note. ECP is only the implementing agency not lawmaking body.

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Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad

Oct 20, 2018 06:17pm

Bad decision by the Election Commission of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan not to include the patriotic, gallant and hardworking overseas Pakistanis in the up-coming by-elections in the country. In fact, the right to vote is the fundamental democratic right of every citizen and it must not be ignored or snubbed by anybody on one pretext or the other.

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Philosopher (From Japan)

Oct 20, 2018 08:00pm

Overseas shouldn’t have voting rights. Since they are not a part of this society they have no right to vote in favor of any domestic candidate I guess. It’s useless for them to elect anybody who is out of their reach and problems. Don’t play like 12ve man in cricket.

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Jacky

Oct 20, 2018 09:29pm

@Philosopher (From Japan) but u want their hard earned foreign money.

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Philosopher (From Japan)

Oct 21, 2018 01:32am

@Jacky by the way they don’t send that money directly to government exchequer but send it to their own relatives in the shape of remittances. I think you need to learn invisible hand theory of Adam Smith.

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Sameer

Oct 21, 2018 04:13am

Its funny that ECP is denying voting rights.

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saad

Oct 21, 2018 04:38am

how about the parliament decides what ecp can do or not other than a few people sitting in a conference room gets to decide all that who can vote this time or not

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Salman Khan

Oct 21, 2018 09:43am

I don't get all the hate for overseas Pakistanis. I actually know of quite a few people who come to Pakistan JUST to cast their vote.

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