Overseas voters, if allowed, could be a game-changer

ISLAMABAD: Nearly 700,000 overseas voters are going to have a big say in 20 hotly-contested constituencies where the victory margin was quite thin in the 2018 general elections while a debate is on, on giving or not giving the Pakistani expatriates the right to vote.

Such a large number of overseas voters can swing the elections in favour of any particular party in these constituencies, according to official figures.

As many as 8.1 million voters are registered collectively in these areas.

Nearly 10 million Pakistani nationals have had the National Identity Card (NIC) for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP), which entitled them to exercise their right to vote in upcoming elections from nearly 200 countries.

The districts where the overseas voters are registered include Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Sialkot.

District Rawalpindi has had collectively 406,843 potential overseas voters in its seven national constituencies.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf (PTI) and its ally Awami Muslim League of Sheikh Rashid Ahmed won six of these seats in 2018 and one seat went to Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

None of the contests were close and all saw a 10 per cent or more difference between winners and runner-up, except on NA-57, where Shahid Khakan Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-N) lost with a margin of only 5 per cent votes to his PTI’S rival.

If the overseas scenarios play out, then PTI could gain between 28,000 to 71,000 voters in this district and further strengthen its position.

It would, however, depend on the candidate it fields and other ground realities, the same as Sialkot district where the PML-N had maintained a 47per cent are in votes in 2008 and 2013.

However, it got 12pc less in the same district in 2018.

District Sialkot has a total of 357,700 potential overseas voters in its five national seats. Its NA-73 saw a victory margin of 1,406 votes in favour of PML-N’S Khawaja Asif, in the 2018 elections.

The constituency has 93,372 potential overseas voters and different scenarios show that it could gain between 6,535 to 16,340 votes in the constituency.

The seat could tilt towards PTI but there are just too many variables for it to be certain.

The PML-N has maintained its vote bank in Sialkot in 2013 and 2018, as well as the recent by-election.

They have been winning all seats since 2008, with the exception of one that they lost to the PPP in 2008.