ISLAMABAD, Dec 17: With three weeks left for January 8 election, the voters’ turnout remains a moot point between political parties. Some parties project a lower turnout because of the boycott of several political parties, few predict a moderate turnout while some of the parties believe that the 2008 election will witness the biggest ever turnout in the elections held between 1985 and 2002.

The leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) are expecting high turnout in the forthcoming election — though for different reasons. The PML-N believes that the turnout would remain ‘moderate’ as the government had not provided sufficient time to the parties to mobilize masses. However, all these parties are of the view that the decision of some parties to boycott the polls would have no impact on the turnout.

A leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), which had announced the polls boycott, claimed that the turnout would remain very low and the election would bring ‘embarrassment’ for the nation.

Information secretary of the PML-Q, Punjab, Senator Kamil Ali Agha claimed that the turnout would be over 50 per cent this time as, according to him, the people of Pakistan had become aware of the importance of vote. He said the media had also played an important role in highlighting the importance of vote. Besides this, he said, due to the efforts of the PML-Q government democracy had reached grass-root level. He said the opposition parties had also motivated the voters and political polarization had increased in the past few days.

On the other hand, information secretary of the PPP, Punjab, Farzana Raja said the people would come out in a large number on the polling day as they wanted a change. She said the people had been fed up with the present rulers who had put the country into a deep crisis due to their wrong policies during last eight years.

She said her party was also making efforts to mobilise the people by telling them that they should come out to save the country from total disaster. She said price-hike, poor law and order situation and rising unemployment would force the people to come out of their homes to express their anger and they would vote for a change.

PML-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal, when contacted, said that he was expecting a ‘moderate’ turnout this year as the political parties were not given sufficient time to mobilize the voters. He said the electioneering had not so far picked up the momentum.

Former JI MNA from Islamabad Mian Mohammad Aslam said when all the parties were contesting the elections, his party was ‘contesting boycott’. He claimed that the people had realized that there would be no use of casting their votes in the absence of an independent judiciary and free media.

In the 2002 election, 30.01 million used their right of vote and the turnout remained 41.76 per cent. The average turnout in the last six elections, held between 1985 to 2002, is 42.41 per cent.

The country witnessed the lowest turnout in the 1997 elections when only 36.01 per cent (19.24 million) of the registered voters used their right to vote. The highest turnout was witnessed in the partyless 1985 election when 53.69 per cent (17.47 million) of the registered voters cast their votes.

The record shows that highest average turnout in the National Assembly elections was in Islamabad with 53.91 per cent, followed by 47.75 per cent in Punjab, 37.19 per cent in Sindh, 34.16 per cent in NWFP, 31.69 per cent in Fata and 27.20 per cent in Balochistan.

For the provincial assemblies elections in 2002, the turnout remained 46.02 per cent in Punjab, 38.18 per cent in Sindh, 35.01 per cent in NWFP and 30.23 per cent in Balochistan. All the provinces witnessed highest turnout in the 1985 elections with Punjab 62.61 per cent, Sindh 50.01 per cent, NWFP 48.20 per cent and Balochistan with 46.86 per cent.

Following tables provide complete information about the turnouts in all the elections, held between 1985 to 2002: