Pakistan sees 23pc increase in its voters

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  • Total number of voters increase to 105.96mn as compared to 86.19mn in 2013

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday published the final electoral rolls ahead of recent polls, showing a 23 per cent increase in the total number of voters as compared to the 2013 elections when the total number of voters stood at 86.19 million.

According to the rolls, 105.96 million voters will be able to cast their vote in the upcoming elections. Of these, 59.22 million are male and 46.73 million are females, with the gender gap between male and female rising to around 12.5 million.

According to the figures, 55.9 per cent of the registered voters in Pakistan are males while only 44.1 per cent are females.

Punjab tops the list with the largest number of voters with a total of 60.67 million voters (23 per cent increase from 2013), of which 33.68 million are male and 26.99 million are female. A total of 22.39 million voters, an 18 per cent increase over 2013, are registered in Sindh, according to the figures proved by the ECP, of which 12.44 million are male and 9.95 million are female.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the third largest province of the country, is home to 15.32 million registered voters – 25 per cent higher than 2013 – including 8.71 million male and 6.61 million female voters. Balochistan has a total of 4.3 million registered voters — 29 per cent more than 2013 — including 2.49 million male and 1.81 million female voters.

In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), 2.51 million voters would be able to exercise their right of voting while 0.77 million were registered with the ECP from the capital territory.

The publishing of electoral rolls comes as the commission awaits president’s final decision on the exact dates of the elections and a name for the caretaker prime minister.

ECP on Monday proposed July 25-27 as possible dates for the upcoming elections and forwarded a summary in this regard to President Mamnoon Hussain, requesting him to set one of the proposed dates as the day of the polls according to Elections Act 2017, Section 57(1).