PTI's Shaukat Yousafzai reclaims PK-23 Shangla seat

PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate Shaukat Yousafzai on Monday emerged victorious in the re-election on the PK-23 Shangla constituency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

According to unofficial results, Shaukat Yousafzai secured 39,290 votes. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) candidate Muhammad Rishad Khan came second with 22,545 votes.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had set up 135 polling stations across the constituency. The polling began at 8AM and continued till 6PM without any interval.

There were thirteen candidates contesting the elections including Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’s (MMA) Muhammad Yaar, Awami National Party’s (ANP) Umer Zada and Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Afsar-ul-Mulk.

The local leadership of ANP on Sunday had also announced to support Yousafzai. The army was also deployed to provide assistance in the polls.

Former KP minister and member provincial assembly Yousafzai had emerged victorious from the constituency in the July 25 general elections. He secured 17,933 votes defeating PML-N’s Rishad Khan who received 15,533 votes.

However, the victory notification of the PTI candidate was not issued after the general elections because of low female voter turnout in the constituency. Only 3,500 of 86,698 women had cast their votes in the polls, leading to ECP to annul the election result.

The ECP had decided to conduct a fresh round of polling in the constituency. The decision to halt the notification was taken by a five-member bench of the ECP headed by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and was upheld by the Supreme Court.

According to the election rules, if among the total votes cast in a constituency, the share of women in the final count is less than 10%, the results of the polls may be declared void.