Äänioikeusprofiili

Pakistan

Asia · pk

Pakistan is a federal parliamentary republic with a bicameral Majlis-e-Shoora. The 336-member National Assembly has 266 general seats filled by first-past-the-post in single-member constituencies, plus 60 seats reserved for women and 10 for non-Muslims, which are filled after the election from closed party lists in proportion to the general seats each party has won. The 96-member Senate — reduced from 104 as the eight seats for the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas were retired after the Twenty-Fifth Amendment — is a continuing chamber elected indirectly by the provincial assemblies, with the federal capital's seats filled by the National Assembly, for six-year terms with half renewed every three years. The largely ceremonial President is elected by an electoral college of the two houses and the provincial assemblies.

Profiili tarkistettu viimeksi August 29, 2026

Everything in a Pakistani general election happens on a single day: National Assembly and all four provincial assemblies are elected together, which in February 2024 meant roughly 90,675 polling stations, 128.6 million registered voters and more than 1.1 million polling officials. Voters mark a paper ballot for each assembly and the count happens at the polling station, where the presiding officer fills in Form 45, the statement of the count, and hands copies to candidates' agents; the returning officer consolidates those into Form 47 for the constituency. Because that chain from Form 45 to Form 47 is where a result can be changed, the transparency of Pakistani elections turns almost entirely on whether the forms reach the public promptly and match. The Election Commission of Pakistan is a constitutional body under Article 218, made up of a Chief Election Commissioner — a former Supreme Court or high court judge — and four members, one from each province, whom the Commonwealth Observer Group records as required to be former high court judges; but it also appoints the election tribunals that hear challenges to results in which the Commission itself is often a party. Domestic observation is well developed, with FAFEN, PILDAT and Pattan-Coalition 38 running large accredited operations, and international groups are admitted; what is weakest is the speed of post-election justice, with 128 of the 374 petitions against the 2024 results still undecided more than two years later.

Miten äänestäminen toimii nykyisin

Äänestysikä: 18 ja sitä vanhemmat
Äänestäjärekisteröinti: Valtion aloitteesta
Henkilöllisyystodistus: Valokuvallinen henkilöllisyystodistus vaaditaan
Pakollinen äänestäminen: Ei
Postiäänestys: Rajoitettu
Ennakkoäänestys: Ei saatavilla
Verkkoäänestys: Ei saatavilla
Äänestäminen ulkomailta: Ei saatavilla

Registration is continuous and driven by the state rather than the voter: NADRA passes the Election Commission the details of every computerised national identity card it issues, and the Commission adds the holder to the roll for the area on the card. The CNIC is the only document that establishes eligibility and is accepted at the polling station even after its validity period has expired, so a citizen without one cannot register or vote. Postal ballots are limited by section 93 of the Elections Act to people registered away from their polling area, officials on election duty including police, prisoners, and persons with a physical disability whose CNIC carries the NADRA disability logo. Overseas Pakistanis, of whom the Overseas Pakistani Foundation counted about 9 million in 2023, could not vote in 2024: internet voting pilots ordered by the Supreme Court after 2018 exposed serious security weaknesses, and a 2022 amendment to section 94 removed the obligation on the Commission to enable overseas voting, leaving only a power to run pilots in by-elections.

Miten äänioikeus on muuttunut

Jokainen merkintä kirjaa muutoksen siinä, kuka saattoi äänestää tai miten; sekä laajennukset, rajoitukset että menettelyuudistukset.

1958Rajoittaminen
General Ayub Khan imposed martial law, Pakistan's first experience of military rule; he governed as President until 1969, and was followed by a second military regime under General Yahya Khan until 1971.
Pakistan General Election, 8 February 2024: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group
1973Uudistus
A new Constitution, adopted by all the political parties in the then National Assembly, established a parliamentary system in which the President was largely ceremonial and the National Assembly could be dissolved by the President only on the Prime Minister's advice.
Pakistan National and Provincial Assembly Election, 10 October 2002: EU Election Observation Mission Final Report
1974Rajoittaminen
The Second Amendment to the Constitution redefined Ahmadis as non-Muslim, the basis on which they were later required to sign a declaration on the finality of prophethood or be moved to a separate voters' list.
Pakistan General Election, 8 February 2024: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group
1977Rajoittaminen
Months after the 1977 general election, General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq removed the elected government in a military takeover and ruled until his death in 1988; no election was contested on party platforms for the next fifteen years.
Pakistan General Election, 8 February 2024: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group
1985Rajoittaminen
The Eighth Amendment inserted Article 58(2)(b), empowering the President to dissolve the National Assembly and to nominate the Prime Minister, provincial governors and superior court judges; it provided the legal basis for the dismissal of four governments before its repeal by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1997.
Pakistan National and Provincial Assembly Election, 10 October 2002: EU Election Observation Mission Final Report
1988Laajentaminen
The 1988 general election was the first in fifteen years fought on political party platforms; the Pakistan Peoples Party won and Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister.
Pakistan General Election, 8 February 2024: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group
2002Laajentaminen
Ahead of the October 2002 election the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18, 60 National Assembly seats were reserved for women, and a joint electorate replaced the separate electorate under which non-Muslims had voted only for minority seats. Ahmadi voters were nonetheless returned to a separate voters' list under Articles 7B and 7C of the Conduct of General Elections Order unless they signed a declaration on the finality of prophethood.
Pakistan National and Provincial Assembly Election, 10 October 2002: EU Election Observation Mission Final Report
2018Laajentaminen
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment merged the Federally Administered Tribal Areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; FATA's twelve National Assembly seats expired in 2023 and six were reallocated to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the basis of population, bringing the region's voters into the ordinary provincial franchise.
Pakistan General Election, 8 February 2024: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group
2023Uudistus
Delimitation after the 2023 census cut National Assembly general constituencies from 272 to 266 and the chamber from 342 to 336 seats. The delay in completing the census and the redrawing pushed the general election past the constitutional deadline of 90 days after the August 2023 dissolution, to 8 February 2024.
Pakistan General Election, 8 February 2024: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group

Ääntenlaskennan suojatoimet

Äänestyslipun tyyppi: Paperiset äänestysliput
Vaalien jälkeinen tarkastus: Vain oikeudellinen valitus
Vaalihallinto: Riippumaton komissio
Kotimaiset tarkkailijat: Kyllä
Kansainväliset tarkkailijat: Kyllä

A declared result is checked through the paper trail and then through the courts. The count happens at the polling station, the presiding officer records it on Form 45 and gives copies to candidates' agents, and section 95(10) requires the Commission to publish all Forms 45, 46 and 47 on its website within 14 days of the poll, which makes the agent's copy and the published copy comparable. Section 13 requires results to be transmitted digitally as well, but the systems built for that purpose failed in both 2018 and 2024. After the result is notified, the Commission itself may act under section 9 within 60 days where women voters appear to have been restrained from voting, but otherwise the route to overturn a result is an election petition to a tribunal appointed by the Commission, with an appeal to the Supreme Court; the Supreme Court has held that the ballot papers themselves are the primary evidence and that Forms 45 and 47 are presumed correct until a recount is ordered. There is no routine statistical audit and no parallel vote tabulation: the Commonwealth Observer Group recommended in 2024 that civil society organisations undertake one in future elections.

Hyvä tietää

128 million citizens were registered to vote for the 2024 election, 53.2 per cent of the population, up from 106 million and 49.6 per cent in 2017. On FAFEN analysis cited by the Commonwealth Observer Group the ratio varied sharply by province: 57.3 per cent of the population in Punjab and 53.7 per cent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but only 36 per cent in Balochistan, which the Group treats as a case for concentrating registration resources there.Pakistan General Election, 8 February 2024: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group
Ahmadis are kept on a separate voters' list. To be on the joint roll a voter must record a religious status on the NADRA identity paperwork, and selecting Muslim requires an oath whose substance conflicts with Ahmadi belief; selecting Ahmadi places the voter on the separate list. The community has historically boycotted elections in response, and the public availability of a register that shows religious identity alongside names and addresses has itself been raised as a safety concern.Pakistan General Election, 8 February 2024: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group
If the turnout of women voters in a constituency is less than ten per cent of the total votes polled, section 9 of the Elections Act 2017 allows the Election Commission to presume that women were restrained from voting by agreement and to declare the poll void at one or more polling stations or in the whole constituency.The Elections Act, 2017
The maximum time the law allows from the notification of a result to a Supreme Court decision on a challenge is 435 days: 45 days to file a petition under section 142, 180 days for the tribunal under section 148(5), 30 days to appeal under section 155(1) and 180 days for the appeal under section 155(3).The Elections Act, 2017
In practice, 128 of the 374 petitions against the February 2024 results were still undecided at the end of April 2026, more than two years after the poll, and none of the Islamabad petitions had been disposed of. Disposal ranged from 94 per cent in Balochistan to 29 per cent in Sindh.Two Years On: Over a Third of GE-2024 Election Petitions Still Await Decision
Turnout in 2024 was 47.6 per cent, down from 52.1 per cent in 2018, even though 5.8 million more people voted; the fall is a function of the register growing by 22.6 million voters between the two elections.FAFEN Analysis of Voter Turnout, General Elections 2024