PESHAWAR – The process of re-polling in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly’s PK-23, Shangla is underway after the results in the constituency were declared invalid by the Election Commission of Pakistan due to low female voter turnout during the general election 2018.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI Shaukat Yousafzai, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’s (MMA) Muhammad Yaar, Awami National Party’s (ANP) Umer Zada and Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Afsar-ul-Mulk are among 13 candidates contesting the elections.
The voting process started at 8am and will continue till 6pm without any break while 135 polling stations have been established in the constituency.
Earlier, PTI’s Yousafzai emerged victorious in general elections but the ECP had withheld the notification regarding his victory.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/pakistan/ecp-withholds-notification-of-shaukat-yousafzais-victory/
The order came on Tuesday after the Chief Election Commissioner, Justice (retd) Sardar Mahmood Raza headed a five-member commission and discussed the low female voter turn-out in PK-23, Shangla constituency from where Yousafzai had won during the July 25 polls.
During the meeting, neither the petitioner nor the winning candidate appeared before the commission owing to which the five members decided to withhold the notification in another blow to the party that had lost a provincial seat owing to vote recount in PK-70.
PTI’s central leader from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Yousafzai had won from PK-23, Shangla with 17,399 votes in the 2018 General Election.
According to the ECP data, 86,698 women were registered to vote in the constituency, however, only 3,505 women cast their votes in violation of ECP regulations.
Ahead of the elections, the electoral body had declared that results of any constituency would be declared invalid if the female turnout would be lower than 10 percent.
