Provincial elections were held in

Sindh Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind (caliphal province), Sind or Scinde) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is t ...

on 8 February 2024 to elect a new provincial legislature. On 5 August 2023, after the approval of the results of the 2023 digital census by the Council of Common Interests headed by

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Shehbaz Sharif Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif (born 23 September 1951) is a Pakistani politician and businessman who has served as the 20th Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime minister of Pakistan since March 2024, having previously been in the role between Ap ...

, elections have been delayed for several months, as new delimitations will be published on 14 December 2023. On 2 November 2023, the

Election Commission of Pakistan The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is an independent, autonomous, permanent and constitutionally established federal body responsible for organizing and conducting elections to the national parliament, provincial legislatures, local g ...

announced, in agreement with the

President of Pakistan The president of Pakistan () is the head of state of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The president is the nominal head of the executive and the supreme commander of the Pakistan Armed Forces.

Arif Alvi Arif-ur-Rehman Alvi () is a Pakistani politician who served as the 13th President of Pakistan, in office from 2018 to 2024. He was a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from June 2013 to May 2018 and again from August to September 2018. ...

, that the elections should be held on 8 February 2024. This election was held concurrently with nationwide general elections and other provincial elections.

Background

In the 2018 election, the

Pakistan People's Party The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is a political party in Pakistan and one of the three major Pakistani political parties alongside the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. With a centre-left political position, it is cu ...

(PPP) won 99 seats, gaining a majority in the Provincial Assembly. It became the third consecutive time that the PPP was able to form government in Sindh Since

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

. The

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is a political party in Pakistan established in 1996 by cricketer and politician Imran Khan, who served as the country's prime minister from 2018 to 2022. The party is led by Gohar Ali Khan since late 2023. ...

(PTI) became the largest party in Karachi by winning 21 out of 44 seats from the city. It was the first time since 1988 that any party other than the MQM-P got the mandate to represent the city on the provincial and national levels. Overall, the PTI won 30 seats and became the second largest party, and the largest party in the opposition. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement - Pakistan (MQM-P), which was the largest and most popular party in

Karachi Karachi is the capital city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Sindh, Pakistan. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, largest city in Pakistan and 12th List of largest cities, largest in the world, with a popul ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

and other urban areas of

, faced a tough challenge from the rising popularity of the PTI and received its worst ever result. It won only 21 seats and became the third largest party in the province. The MQM-P also opted to join the opposition. In April 2022, after circumstances arising during a political crisis in Pakistan after the successful no-confidence motion against Prime Minister

Imran Khan Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi (born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician, philanthropist, and former cricketer who served as the 19th prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 until April 2022. He was the founder of the political party Pak ...

, the MQM-P left the opposition and joined the PPP-led provincial government. In September 2022, Former

and Leader of

announced to liberate

from Zardari Mafia. He stated that

will team up with the youth to liberate the poor and oppressed people of Interior

from Feudal lords of

. This was the very first time some party leader threatened dominance of People's Party in

and upcoming election will be a battle for survival of PPP in interior Sindh as

has support of the people of

and

and will be able to gain seats in Interior Sindh if they campaign well.

Merger of MQM factions

Since the appointment of

Kamran Tessori Muhammad Kamran Khan Tessori () is a Pakistani politician and businessman, and the Governor of Sindh since October 2022. Tessori is a member of the MQM-P party. Personal life Tessori is an ethnic Muhajir, and belongs to the Tessori family, wh ...

as the

Governor of Sindh The governor of Sindh is the appointed head of the province of Sindh, Pakistan. The office of the governor as the head of the province is largely a ceremonial position; the executive powers lie with the Chief Secretary of Sindh, Chief Secretary ...

, efforts began to merge breakaway factions of the MQM-P like the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) and the Farooq Sattar group back into the MQM-P to unite their vote bank to overcome the growing popularity of

(PTI). The Mohajir Qaumi Movement Pakistan - Haqiqi (MQM-H) was also approached, but refused to merge the with the MQM-P. On the evening of 12 January 2023 Syed Mustafa Kamal, the leader of the PSP, and

Farooq Sattar Muhammad Farooq Sattar (; born 9 April 1959) is a Pakistani politician who is the Senior Deputy Convenor of the MQM-P. Born in Karachi, Sattar was educated at the Jinnah Sindh Medical University, Karachi. Sattar began his political career in 1 ...

announced their merger with the MQM-P in a press conference.

Ban on PTI from contesting as a party

On 22 December 2023, the

(ECP) decided against letting the PTI retain its electoral symbol, arguing that the party had failed to hold intra-party elections. On 22 December, the PTI approached the

Peshawar High Court The Peshawar High Court (PHC, ) is the provincial and highest judicial institution of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. It is located in the provincial capital Peshawar. The Parliament passed a bill extending the jurisdiction of the Supreme Cour ...

(PHC) against the ECP's order and hence, a single-member bench suspended the ECP's order until 9 January 2024. On 30 December 2023, the ECP filed a review application within the PHC, and days later, a two-member bench withdrew the suspension order as it heard the case. However, on 10 January 2024, the two-member bench had declared the ECP's order to be "illegal, without any lawful authority, and of no legal effect. On 11 January, the ECP challenged this ruling in the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

, and on 13 January, a three-member bench ruled in favor of the ECP and stripped the PTI of its electoral symbol. As a consequence of this ruling, the PTI could not allot party tickets to any of its candidates. Therefore, all candidates of the party will be listed as independent candidates and each will have a different electoral symbol.

Schedule

The schedule of the election was announced by the

on 15 December 2023.

Electoral system

The 168 seats of the Sindh Assembly consist of 130 general seats, whose members are elected by the

first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

voting system through single-member constituencies. 29 seats are reserved for women and 9 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.

Opinion polls

Results

Result by party

Results by region

Results by division

Results by district

Results by constituency

Notes

References

{{Sindh elections Sindh provincial election Sindh provincial election Elections in Sindh