Will the youth of Chitral have an impact on elections?

CHITRAL, May 2: When there is a lot of talks about the youth factor in the coming general elections, one does not know exactly how much impact the youth of Chitral will make on May 11. Talking about the overall situation in the country, it is said that about 70 per cent of the voters who got themselves registered for the 2013 elections are youth and majority of them, as claimed by Imran Khan, are with the PTI. However, figures obtained from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) about the new voters and some other factors do not go well in favour of the PTI in Chitral. According to latest update obtained by ChitralToday from the ECP Chitral office, the total number of voters in the district is: 205,989 (males: 119,961 and females: 86,028). In the 2008 elections, the number of voters in the valley was 200657 – 117689 males and 82968 females. It shows that there has been an addition of only 5332 voters after five years. However, it is not officially known how many of the new registered voters are aged below 30 or 35 years. Even if all of them are young people, the number is not that much to make any big difference. Secondly, looking at the social media, in which the Chitrali youth is very active, it seems that they are divided among different parties like the PPP, religious parties, PTI and the APML. If the social media is also a good indicator, then majority of the Chitrali youth are with former president Pervez Musharraf. Another factor in the elections 2013 is the weather. Though the turnout will remain high in May compared to any election in winter cold, and also because in May most of the people working outside the district to earn a living return to Chitral, still a good number of the young voters will be away as there will be no summer vacations in any higher educational institution in the country in early May.]]>