ISSUE VOTING AS A VOTING DETERMINANT IN DISTRICT CHITRAL: A CASE STUDY OF PK 89 IN 2013 GENERAL ELECTIONS

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe the voting pattern of the people of District Chitral in the 2013 General Elections. It uncovers the tendencies of the people towards issues while casting their vote in 2013 General Elections. The article reveals issue voting as an important determinant of voting behavior motivating the voters to cast their vote while keeping in view their issues. It has been argued that the theory of issue voting is applicable to a greater extent in the electoral politics of District Chitral in the General Elections of 2013. This research work has been conducted to probe into the determinants compelling the people of PK-89 District Chitral to cast their vote with special reference to the 2013 general elections. The determinants, which have been investigated, contain issue voting, partisanship or party identification, religious voting and clientelistic voting or patronage politics. After conducting survey in the universe and in the light of the data collected it can be argued that issue voting as a voting determinant is applicable to a greater extent (93.98%) in the electoral politics of PK-89 District Chitral. As electoral studies is the science that deals with voting behavior and all those voting determinants that directed and force voters to vote. These complexities are deal with or comprehended by bringing them under the umbrella of electoral studies. The present study also aims at inculcating those determinants in the form of theories and then applying them as variables putting impact on the voting attitude of the people of Chitral in PK 89 in 2013 elections. This is an empirical study which is mostly comprised of quantitative, analytical comparative methods. The theoretical literature framework has been covered by secondary sources of data such as books, journals, theses, internet etc. On the other hand, for empirical data a questionnaire has been created. The respondents for filling out the questionnaire have been selected on the basis of random sampling from the voter lists. Multi stage random sampling has been applied in this regard. After the collection data is framed, tabulated, categorized and finally analyzed on the basis of various independent variables.