By-elections have consistently failed to pull a large number of citizens out of their homes on the big day. On average, the turnout for by-polls in the country has never exceeded 30%.
There are a number of reasons behind the country’s low turnout in by-elections. One of them is that by-polls are normally held in one or two constituencies at a time and their outcomes don’t affect the overall positions of the political parties in the legislative assemblies.
However, the by-elections held on Sunday on 20 seats of the Punjab Assembly broke all previous records as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) recorded a turnout of 49.69%.
The public took a keen interest in the latest by-polls because the party winning the most seats would have been able to bring their leader of the house in the Punjab Assembly.
In a house of 371 members, the support of 186 members is required to become Chief Minister of Punjab. Following the by-polls, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has emerged as the biggest party in the house with 178 seats.
After adding 10 seats of the Pakistan Muslim League Q (PMLQ), the number of seats of this coalition has reached 188, meaning that Punjab is almost certain to get a new Chief Minister on 22 July.
