PESHAWAR - Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has once again elected the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-supported candidates, staging a clean sweep in several districts of the province.
The districts of Abbottabad, Khyber, Upper Dir, and several others witnessed clean sweep by the PTI-backed nominees.
The leading religious parties -- Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUIF) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) could not withstand the tsunami of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and failed to maintain their positions even in erstwhile strongholds in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The JUI-F secured one while the JI failed to secure even a single berth in the National Assembly from the province till the filing of this report.
Similarly, several key candidates of Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party and Qaumi Watan Party also lost to the PTI candidates. The Awami National Party (ANP)’s senior vice-president Ameer Haider Hoti even resigned the party office. On Friday, Hoti accepted his defeat in the general elections and quit his office due over the party’s poor performance in his constituency and other parts of the Mardan district.
This is the third time in succession that PTI has won majority seats in the general elections, something unique in the history of KP.
In the past too, the PTI had secured majority seats in the general elections of 2013 and 2018.
Discussing the ongoing election results, a Peshawar-based analyst Dr Sarfraz Khan said that the PTI’s recent win could be attributed to the sympathy vote in wake arrest of its leader as well as actions taken against the party activists in recent past.
“Also, PTI has established its vote bank among the young people of the country. And while elderly may have got discouraged due to the communication blackout on the polling day, the young voters were able to actively participate in the balloting. This can also be a reason,” he added.
He further said that it remained to be seen whether the communication blackout on the election day was linked to some rigging in the election process or not.
