ISLAMABAD: The by-election on Nat­ional Assembly seat NA-171 (Rahim Yar Khan-III) was largely fair with the winning party, PPP, increasing its vote share by over 40 per cent compared to the general elections, according to a report by the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen).

The seat, which fell vacant due to the death of PTI leader Mumtaz Mustafa, was won by PPP’s Makhdoom Tahir Rasheeduddin, who got 116,429 votes, according to the official result.

PTI’s Hassan Mustafa secured 58,251 votes.

According to the analysis of polling activity done by Fafen, the PTI saw its vote share slashed from 43pc in the general elections to 32pc in Thursday’s polls.

Even though a total of seven candidates, including six men and a woman, were contesting the election, the absence of PML-N’s candidate made the by-election a two-way race between the PPP and PTI, Fafen said.

<PPP vote share goes up by more than 40pc

As per Fafen, the by-poll remained peaceful and well-organised, with isolated procedural irregularities reported.

According to Fafen, inadequate copies of result forms were provided to the polling staff, who also lacked proper training to conduct the election.

The number of invalid votes declined from 3pc of the polled votes in the general election to 2pc.

According to Fafen, the total number of voters in the constituency was 526,973, with 288,113 males and 238,860 females.

The turnout remained 35.79pc with 184,887 voters casting their votes. The number of discarded votes stood at 3,201, according to Form-47, available on ECP’s website.

‘Largely transparent’

The provisional consolidated result — Form-47 — was ready before 12am on Thursday, the analysis said.

The ballot counting process was also “largely transparent and compliant with the legal and regulatory procedures”.

The presiding officers provided copies of the ‘Result of the Count’ (Form-45) to all polling agents present during the counting process.

However, copies of the ‘Ballot Paper Account’ (Form-46) were not provided to the polling agents at 43pc of the observed polling stations, according to Fafen.

At 14pc of the observed polling stations, presiding officers did not provide copies of Form-45 to election observers and Form-46 at 43pc of the polling stations.

Around 22pc of the polling officers and 23pc assistant presiding officers at the observed polling stations reported they did not receive training before the election duty, Fafen noted.

The Election Commission of Pakistan had set up 301 polling stations — 88 male, 88 female and 125 combined — with 901 booths.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2024