In the 2024 election, the public demonstrated little enthusiasm for election campaigning.
Part of the reason was that parties like the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf lost their bat symbol, making it more difficult to identify the independent candidates who claimed to belong to their party.
As a result, PTI carried on their 2018 strategy of going digital to attract voters.
Despite denying them their symbol, a large number of voters gravitated toward the PTI – upsetting predictions for the NWFP and Punjab.
The trend of using digital and social media also engaged other political parties.
These parties started their pre-election campaign by forming alliances to secure as many seats as possible.
Since the Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League had a mandate to hold campaigns, they drew crowds in mass rallies.
However, even their manifestos tended to be sketchy.
In Balochistan, nationalist parties scored poorly. The main reason appeared to be the law-and-order situation, under which polling stations were created in far flung areas.
Nationalists claimed this allowed for pre-poll rigging.
Election attacks in KP also proved somewhat disruptive. However, it did not prevent the PTI from garnering the biggest number of votes from the province.
