ISLAMABAD, 12 January 2007 — A nationalist leader in the northern Pakistani district of Bajaur won a clear victory in a parliamentary by-election held in the wake of a US airstrike in October on a madrasa there, according to preliminary results yesterday.
Shahabuddin Khan of the Awami National Party got four times more votes than his main rival from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League.
But turnout was low in Wednesday’s voting. Fewer than 29,000 of the more than 130,000 eligible voters cast ballots, and no women participated, the Geo private television channel said.
Voting passed peacefully despite threats by militant groups to carry out attacks. However, the Jamaat-e-Islami staged one of the largest protest rallies in recent months.
The seat fell vacant after Jamaat’s Sahibzada Haroon Rashid resigned in protest over the missile strike that killed more than 80 people in October last year. Shahabuddin was defeated by Rashid in the 2002 general elections. During those polls the ANP was routed in the NWFP. Shahabuddin could only get 8400 votes then. This time he got 18,000 votes.
“We decided to contest the by-election because we did not want to leave the field open,” ANP President Asfandyar Wali Khan told Arab News yesterday. ANP’s closest rival PML (Q) candidate Said Badshah got only 4,700 votes.
Commenting on the very low turnout, Jamaat leader Liaquat Baluch said people abstained from voting because of tension in the area.
