Electoral Politics of District Khushab: A Comparative Analysis of 2013 and 2018 Elections

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to compare the electoral performance of major political parties in district Khushab in the recently held elections 2013 and 2018. The comparison of electoral outcome provides a guideline to political parties to assess their graph of popularity in a specific area or province. Unlike the results of 2013 election, the polling outcome of recently held 2018 election, was of immense importance as it changed completely the traditional political atmosphere of the country. Like other parts of the land, a visible shift in voting behavior in district Khushab was also observed during this election. Though this region (District Khushab) has had been a stronghold of Muslim League in the past, yet PTI’s slogan change, changed the minds of people who ignored vote ko izzat do and voted for naya Pakistan. Comparative research method has been applied to infer the outcome. District Khushab has been taken as a case-study. The paper concludes that like previous electoral results, monopoly of few families continued and the tug of power-politics remained in the clutches of biradarism but in a changed political party. It enables them to review their strategies adopted in the past and renew political activities to gain maximum balloting support in future.