Election 2013 turnout encouraging for democracy: FAFEN

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ISLAMABAD

Presenting a detailed analysis report on general election 2013, the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) on Friday termed the increasing voter turnout an encouraging trend for strengthening democracy in the country.
Briefing reporters, FAFEN Board of Trusties Chairman Zaheer Khattak along with Sarwar Bari, Sahibzada Saud and other members highlighted that overall voter turnout in election 2013 in 266 constituencies was recorded as 54.7 percent, a substantial increase as compare to the election 2008.
Khattak said that the urban constituencies registered a substantial increase in turnout by 17 percent followed by majority urban and predominantly urban constituencies seeing an increase of 13.2 percent and 12.8 percent respectively. The predominantly rural constituencies witnessed an increase of 10.9 percent while majority rural constituencies showed and increase of 10.6 percent.
He said that the general election 2013 had the most female candidates (161) compare to the number of female candidates in the previous two elections- 75 and 61 female candidates contested in 2008 and 2002 election respectively.