While Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) has attained a simple majority in Punjab, and is poised to do the same in the center and constitute the next government, all has not been so rosy for the party.
According to Section 43 of The Representation of People Act 1976 in the Election Laws, any candidate who fails to get one-eighth (12.5 %) of the total votes cast in a constituency from where he contests the polls, his security deposit would be confiscated.
Majority of the PML-N candidates for National Assembly seats from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan received very few votes, and subsequently their security deposits have been forfeited. Losing security deposit in any election is considered a humiliating defeat.
According to the results announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf obtained a large number of seats in KPK especially in urban centers. But its arch rival PML-N’s candidates could not manage to obtain one eighth of the total votes polled in their constituencies in the province.
In KPK, 16 candidates of PML-N including their key leader Iqbal Zafar Jhagra got their security deposit forfeited by ECP. In NA-1, Afzal Khan Panyala got 4230 votes while the total votes polled in the constituency were 148043; therefore he could only obtain 2.8% of the votes.
Similarly from NA-2 Abdul Bari of PML-N could only get 3.5 % votes; from NA-3 Iqbal Zafar Jhagra also could not manage to save his security deposit as he obtained a little less than 12.5 % votes.
From NA-5, Pirzada Nabi Amin obtained 7.2% votes; Kaleem Akber Durrani got 2% votes from NA-7; from NA-8 Sajjad Anwar Khan of PML-N got 1.8 % votes; Naseer Mohammad Khan got 6.9 % votes from NA-10.
From NA-11 Sher Afghan Khan of PML-N got 9.1 % votes of the total votes polled hence got his security deposit confiscated. Mohammad Israr from NA-12 obtained 4.2 % votes; from Kohat’s Na-14, Malik Asad of PML-N got 7.8 % votes; Malik Khalid Naeem obtained 8 % votes from NA-16. Rehan Malik Advocate got 3.8 % votes from NA-24; M Yousaf Shah from NA-25 of PML-N obtained only 1.4 % votes; Sar Zamin Khan from NA-28 managed to get 9.3 % and got his security deposit forfeited.
From Chitral, M Younas could only get 1.8% votes in NA-32 where Pervaiz Musharraf’s party’s candidate won the election. In NA-34; PML-N’s Farid Khan Yousafzai obtained 3.8 % votes of the total votes cast.
ECP has not announced election results of many constituencies in Sindh till filing of this report. However, those constituencies where results have been announced, a number of PML-N candidates could not manage to get even 1 % votes polled in the constituencies.
From NA-201, 202, 227 and 251 the candidates of PML-N could not perform and got their security deposits confiscated however its presence was felt in the constituencies of NA-208, 214, 223 and 233.
From the few constituencies of Balochistan whose results have been announced by the ECP, PML-N’s M Yousaf Kakar obtained 999 votes in NA-261; Abdul Sattar Mandokehil got 1470 votes; Sanaullah Zehri from NA-268 obtained 10% votes and Zobaida Jalal got only 941 votes from NA-272. All these candidates got their security deposits confiscated.
