Pakistan Institute of Development Economics

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Electoral systems 

Electoral systems 

Publication Year : 2021
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Pakistan follows an electoral system known as the ‘First-Past-The-Post (FPTP)’ system. Under this system, the leading political party may secure less than 50 percent of the votes and still manage to form the government. Thus, the party forming the government may not be the true representative of the majority of the electorate. For example, in the last two general elections for the National Assembly (NA), the PML-N (2013) and the PTI (2018) won 33 percent and 32 percent of votes respectively and yet were able to form majority governments by bringing in independent winning candidates and MNAs from various regional parties. In simpler terms, it means that every two out of three of those people who cast their votes did not vote for the party that eventually formed the government in both 2013 and 2018.