IT seems that, contrary to what had been widely assumed, the overall level of public participation in the electoral process was lower this time compared to 2018, a post-election analysis conducted by the Free and Fair Election Network shows. Voter participation, measured as ‘turnout’, is the proportion of how many voters actually showed up to vote compared to the total number of registered voters in the electoral rolls. Fafen’s analysis, which relies on Form 47 data published by the ECP, reveals that turnout slipped from 52.1pc in 2018 to 47.6pc this year. There is a silver lining, however: nearly 5.8m more citizens cast their votes in 2024 compared to 2018. The anomaly — more votes, less turnout — was due to the record addition of 22.6m voters to the electoral rolls before this year’s election. A further investigation into how many voters in different age brackets voted will shed more light on whether the huge addition of young voters had a net positive impact on turnout or not. This is something that has far-reaching implications for Pakistan’s electoral politics, and observers and analysts will be keen to find out.

KP and Balochistan recorded the lowest turnouts, with the former doing slightly worse than the latter. Punjab recorded the sharpest decline from 2018, with the overall turnout declining to 51.6pc in 2024 from 56.8pc the last time the general election was held. Though it would be premature to chalk the lower turnout up to specific reasons considering the paucity of data available, it is hoped it does not represent a secular decline in citizens’ enthusiasm for the democratic process. Indeed, the results this time have signalled that many Pakistani voters still believe that their vote can be used to send a strong message to powerful quarters. The exercise may lose some credibility due to the controversy over the manipulation of results, and the ECP will be to blame for this — however, considering how unprecedented the results have been, it is hoped that they will encourage even more people to vote and make sure they get heard the next time. Lastly, and most positively, the increase in women voters was more than double the increase in men voters. This means that women were generally more inclined to vote this year — a trend we hope continues to hold.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2024