As Pakistan prepares for general elections scheduled for February, political analysts are probing past electoral patterns to figure out what lies ahead. Among the questions they are grappling with is the low voter turnout in the country. Why doesn’t half of the country’s eligible voting population show up to exercise their right to vote? And does it matter if such a large segment of eligible voters does not vote?
Over the years, Pakistan has witnessed an average voter turnout of 41 percent with some variations across different election cycles. In the 2018 general election, 51 percent of the country’s voters cast ballots. In 2013, it was slightly higher at 53 percent. The highest ever recorded turnout was at the 1970 general elections with 61 percent showing up to vote, and the lowest in 1997 with only 35 percent voting, according to the Gallup Pakistan Electoral Data.
Meanwhile, with the rise in population over the years, the number of registered voters in the country has witnessed a steady increase.
In the 2018 elections, Pakistan had 106 million registered voters. However, the 2023 statistics released by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) indicate that there are 127 million registered voters in the country. Around 45 percent of them are in the 18 to 35-year age group.
However, in the last elections around 70 percent of the youth refrained from voting. It is generally believed in Pakistan that young people are less interested in politics, often convinced that their votes carry minimal weight and may not make any difference. Such perceptions are fueled by a sense of discontent over the country’s failing democracy, the ongoing economic crises, sudden shifts in power within two to three years of every general election, opportunistic struggles for power among older elite men, and a lack of genuine representation.
The sudden shift and shuffle of power has been repeatedly evident in Pakistan; since 1947, none of the country’s 29 prime ministers completed their full five-year tenure. This was a result of different circumstances, including forced resignations, assassination, corruption, and so on.
As for the lack of representation of youth in parties, although they comprise 44 percent of the total registered voters, those below the age of 35 years comprise just 17 percent of the candidates of Pakistan Tehreek-a-Insaaf (PTI), 13 percent of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and 23 percent of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Most political parties in Pakistan have their youth wings and women’s wings, but how much influence they wield is debatable.
A common feature of Pakistan’s major political parties at the national and provincial levels is that they are run as family enterprises. They encourage dynasties. Young people and women make it to prominent political positions and roles only if they belong to the dominant political families.
Thus, Pakistani politics is dominated by older elite men, and similarly, the voter base too is also largely dominated by older men.
This is evident in the gender voter gap data. For the 2024 elections, 10 million more men than women are registered to vote even though women make up almost half of the population. In the 2018 elections, 11 million fewer women exercised their right to vote.
Generally, the gender gap in turnout is higher in rural areas as compared to urban areas because of the traditional setup that constrains women to stay at home.
But, in Pakistan’s case, it is the opposite. A study published on the website of the United States Institute of Peace suggests that in 2018 there was a higher gender gap in voter turnout in the largest cities of the country as compared to the rural areas. The study connects the lower numbers of women voters in cities with the patriarchal norms within the households, despite a high number of women being educated. Political knowledge and electoral processes are still the domain where the heads of the family, which are mainly older men, make the decisions.
However, in rural Pakistan, the higher number of women voters does not always signify their independent right to vote. Instead, it is often driven by family dynamics, where men, influenced by certain tribal leaders, make electoral decisions, often for reasons like being able to use agricultural land under those leaders. Larger numbers of women, in turn, often only vote following their male family members.
Recent reforms in election laws empower the ECP to nullify results in any constituency where the gender gap in electoral turnout falls below 10 percent of the women on the voter rolls. This legal provision was designed to compel political parties and families to encourage more women to cast their votes.
Although Pakistan’s constitution encourages people with disabilities (PWDs) to actively participate in political processes, especially in elections, poor accessibility at polling stations stands in the way of their voting. Polling stations hardly accommodate accessibility, especially for wheelchair users and the visually impaired.
As for the transgender community, which comprises roughly half a million people, according to an advocacy group TransAction Pakistan — official statistics put the figure at a little over 10,000 — the Transgender Persons Protection Act of 2018, gave the right to citizens to self-identify their gender on national identity cards, followed by the right to vote and run for office as equal citizens.
However, they are rarely registered as voters and the process itself makes it hard for them to get registered. It is also still unspecified where they will cast their votes, as Pakistan has separate polling booths for males and females. The transgender community is often not given access to these polling booths. There is also a lack of information, political mobilization and representation for the transgender community as there is a stigma attached to being transgender.
Pakistan’s youth, women, people with disabilities and transgenders need to find ways in which their active participation in electoral and political processes can make a difference. While the country is taking some steps to ensure more participation, there is still more to be done. There is a need to directly engage with these groups and with political parties and the population in general to create more awareness about the importance of inclusive political engagement.