The 2019 Provincial Elections in Newly Merged Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: An Epoch-Making Commencement

The integration of tribal areas (FATA) of Pakistan with the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a significant development which has ultimately eradicated the twists and turns of the past and diverted the course of action from an unidentified destination to a specified one. The natives, their society, socio-cultural, economic, administrative and above all their political concerns has got a new direction in the aftermath of the said merger. The newly merged districts have recently been passed through a new experience of popular voting on 20th July 2019. Being a central component of democracy, elections provide opportunities of equal standing, progress, prosperity, political awareness, and socio-economic equality to the people. As an integral part of the process of democratization, electoral processes and political contestation provide a wide variety of choice to the citizens of a nation-state to choose their respective leading figures standing in the que of contestation. The present study, however, explores the significant aspects of this political dispensation on the one hand and addresses certain important questions on the other. It pinpoints the role of the major political parties, their programmes, political manifestoes and electoral campaign. The active participation of the tribal masses, the role of independent candidates and women across these districts, are the major areas of concern at the moment. It carefully deals with all these important characteristics of the provincial assembly elections recently held in the newly merged districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the light of empirical evidences portrayed in the primary and secondary source materials.