Provincial elections are scheduled to be held in the

Pakistani province The administrative units of Pakistan comprise four provinces, one federal territory, and two territorial dispute, disputed territories: the provinces of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan, Pakistan, Balochi ...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, ...

within 60 days after the dissolution of the

Provincial Assembly Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Can ...

, which is set to dissolve on August 2023, unless dissolved earlier: in which case the election shall be held within 90 days after dissolution. This means that the election must be held by or before 12 October 2023, the same date nationwide general elections are set to be held.

Electoral system

The 145 seats of the

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a unicameral legislature of elected representatives of the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is located in Peshawar, the provincial capital. It was established under Article 106 of t ...

consist of 115 general seats, whose members are elected by the

first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

voting system through single-member constituencies. 26 seats are reserved for women and 8 seats are reserved for non-Muslims. The members on these seats are elected through proportional representation based on the total number of general seats secured by each political party.

Background

In the 2018 election, the

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI; ur, , ) is a political party in Pakistan. It was founded in 1996 by Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who served as the country's prime minister from 2018 to 2022. The PTI is one of the thre ...

(PTI) won a landslide victory in the province by securing a two-thirds majority in the

. The PTI became the only party in the province’s history to return to government with more seats after completing a 5-year term. Before the 2018 elections,

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan (Fazl) also Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) or simply as Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Urdu: ; ; JUI-F) is a Deobandi Sunni political party in Pakistan. Established as the ''Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam'' in 1945, it is the result o ...

(JUI-F) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) restored their electoral alliance, the

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal The Muttahida Majlis–e–Amal (MMA; Urdu: , "United Council of Action") is a political alliance consisting of conservative, Islamist, religious, and far-right parties of Pakistan. Naeem Siddiqui (the founder of Tehreek e Islami) proposed suc ...

, to counter the PTI’s support but failed to make gains and in fact lost even more seats. The Pashtun nationalist and leftist

Awami National Party The Awami National Party (ANP; ur, , ps, اولسي ملي ګوند; lit. ''People's National Party'') is a Pashtun nationalist, secular and leftist political party in Pakistan. The party was founded by Abdul Wali Khan in 1986 and its curr ...

(ANP) also failed to counter the PTI, but slightly increased their share of seats. The conservative

Pakistan Muslim league (N) The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) ( ur, , translit=Pākistān Muslim Līg (Nūn) PML(N) or PML-N) is a Centre-right politics, centre-right and Liberal conservatism, liberal conservative political party in Pakistan. Alongside the Pakistan Teh ...

(PML-N) once the most popular party in the

Hazara Division Hazara Division is an administrative division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located along the Indus River and comprises eight districts: Abbottabad, Mansehra, Haripur, Battagram, Upper Kohistan, Kolai-Palas, Lower ...

, also faced defeat and was nearly wiped out from the region. Due to circumstances arising after the successful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Imran Khan, a motion of no confidence was also filed to remove

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

Mahmood Khan Mahmood Khan (Urdu, Pashto: ; born 30 October 1972) is a Pakistani politician and a member of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), who is currently serving as the 27th Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in office since 17 August 2018. He has bee ...

from office. The motion was rejected, as 88 votes were cast against the motion to just 2 in favor. On June 26, 2022, the PTI won flipped the PK-7 (Swat-VI) constituency in a by-election, winning by a margin of 4,341 votes and defeated the ANP, which enjoyed the support of the

Pakistan Democratic Movement The Pakistan Democratic Movement ( ur, پاکستان ڈیموکریٹک موومنٹ), or PDM, is a coalition of political parties in Pakistan. It was founded in September 2020 as a movement against then prime minister Imran Khan, accusing his ...

(PDM), particularly the JUI(F) and PML(N).

Opinion polls

Notes

References

{{Khyber Pakhtunkhwa elections Elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 2023 elections in Pakistan