Pakistani General Elections
AS OF 2026-08-30 · 14 CONTESTS · general election, 8 February 2024 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
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Every Pakistani general election from Ayub Khan's electoral college of 1962 to February 2024: the assembly eighty thousand Basic Democrats chose, the one-person-one-vote election of 1970 whose result was never honoured, the party-less ballot under Zia, four dismissed governments in nine years, and three consecutive handovers contested by whoever lost them.
Source: Wikipedia election articles · as of 2026-08-30
National Assembly seats
336
266 elected directly, 70 reserved
Elections since 1962
14
February 2024
93
seats won by PTI-backed independents after the symbol ruling
Latest
2024
Pakistan Muslim League (N) largest · Shehbaz Sharif
The chronology
Every Pakistani general election since 1962, newest first. The first two were decided by an electoral college rather than by voters, and are labelled as such.
The civilian era · 2008–2024
Since 2008 every National Assembly has handed over to the next, which had never happened before, and every one of those elections has been contested as unfair by the side that lost. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf came first in 2018 and, stripped of its party symbol by the courts, again in 2024 with its candidates standing as independents.
Under Musharraf · 2002
The 1999 coup was followed three years later by an election held under a president who had granted himself the power to dissolve the assembly, with the two main party leaders in exile and a graduation requirement that disqualified most of the political class. A new pro-government Muslim League came first.
The democratic decade · 1988–1997
Four elections in nine years and not one of the assemblies they produced served a full term: Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif alternated twice each, and every government in between was dismissed by a president using the powers Zia had left behind. Turnout fell at every election of the period, to 35.8% in 1997.
Under Zia · 1985
Eight years of martial law produced one election, held on a nonpartisan basis with candidates standing as individuals and amendments written to keep the opposition off the ballot. The Movement for the Restoration of Democracy boycotted it. Almost every member returned supported the regime.
One person, one vote · 1970–1977
The 1970 election was the first held on universal adult suffrage anywhere in Pakistan's history, and it broke the country: the Awami League won 167 of the 313 seats on an entirely East Pakistani vote, the result was not honoured, and Bangladesh was independent within a year. The 1977 election that followed gave Bhutto a landslide his opponents refused to accept, and the army removed him in July.
Basic Democracies · 1962–1965
Ayub Khan's 1962 constitution had the National Assembly chosen not by voters but by an electoral college of eighty thousand Basic Democrats, themselves elected in the union councils. Political parties were banned outright for the 1962 election and readmitted for 1965, and both assemblies were dominated by the president's Convention Muslim League.
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout since 1970
From 58% at the first universal-suffrage election to 35.8% in 1997, the lowest on this page, and back to the high forties and low fifties since 2008.
The largest party's share
No party has taken 45% of the vote since 1977. Pakistani majorities are built out of pluralities in the thirties plus the reserved seats that follow them.
Records & superlatives
Highest turnout
58.0%
1970, of the elections with a recorded figure
Lowest turnout
35.8%
1997
Highest vote share
100.0%
Independents, 1985
Most seats won
217
Independents, 1985
Assemblies that finished a term
3
2008, 2013 and 2018; not one between 1988 and 1999 did
Chosen by 80,000 electors
2
1962 and 1965, decided by the Basic Democracies college
How Pakistani elections work
Single-member seats decided by plurality
266 members are elected one per constituency by simple plurality, with no second round. A further 60 seats are reserved for women and 10 for non-Muslims and are shared out among the parties in proportion to the general seats they won, so the reserved bench amplifies whoever came first.
A five-year term the assemblies rarely finished
The National Assembly sits for five years from its first meeting. Between 1988 and 1999 not one assembly reached the end of one, because the president held the power to dismiss the government; since 2008 three have, which is the single most important change on this page.
An electoral college of eighty thousand
Under the 1962 constitution voters elected Basic Democrats in the union councils, and the Basic Democrats elected the National Assembly and the president. The 1962 and 1965 rows are that system, and they are marked as the indirect contests they were.
The symbol on the ballot
With a large share of the electorate unable to read, parties campaign on an allotted symbol rather than a name. When the Supreme Court stripped Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf of its symbol before the 2024 election, its candidates had to stand as independents with a different symbol each, which is why the largest bloc in that row is not a party.