While the battlefield for Election 2018 is undoubtedly the Central and Northern Punjab, taking eyes off of the contest that is brewing in the Southern Punjab would be a mistake. The region is home to a sizeable number of national assembly seats (50) – higher than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA combined. South Punjab, unlike Central Punjab, has swayed from one party to another in every election.
It is said that Punjab goes with wherever the wind blows. It could be said that South Punjab decides which way the wind is blowing. From every election since the IJI in 1990 to PML-N in 2013 – the federal government has been formed by whoever conquered South Punjab.
One would think that winning Central and Northern Punjab would still be needed to form the federal government. But the PPP has defied this twice – in 1993 and 2008. On both occasions, it secured the most seats from South Punjab, but lagged behind the PML-N in the rest of Punjab, hence the overall province, yet ended up forming the government in Islamabad.
Another interesting aspect of South Punjab voting pattern is its relatively higher turnout compared with rest of the province and the country. The last two elections have seen South Punjab turnout higher by 7-8 percentage points from rest of Punjab. Not only is the turnout higher, the region promises much closer contest than the rest.
In the previous two elections, the average winning margin for a constituency in Central and Northern Punjab was 42,074 and 29,504 votes, respectively. That for South Punjab was 29,154 and 14,740 votes respectively. The winning margin in percentage terms came down from 98 percent in rest of Punjab to 47 percent in South Punjab, in 2013. The 2008 elections were even closer with the margin reducing to 33 percent.
Only five out of 50 South Punjab constituencies saw a victory margin of over 100 percent in 2013. Whereas, 40 out of 98 North and Central Punjab constituencies had a winning margin of over 100 percent, with an average for those 40 seats touching nearly 200 percent.
That is one reason why South Punjab was made the focus of all efforts by the major challenger to PML-N, the PTI. Considerable grounds are believed to have been made by the PTI to make significant inroads in the ‘swing’ region, if it could be called that. The importance of electables is believed to be higher here than most other parts of the country.
Even with all the setbacks to the PML-N in the region, it may not be a stroll in the park for the challengers – as last minute independents can still play a vital role. So while the PML-N may struggle to repeat the 2013 performance in South Punjab, if it could pull a strong one in rest of Punjab – don’t forget the independents go with the winners.
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