Abstract
On December 07, 1970, first general elections were held in Pakistan. It took long 23 years that the government
of Pakistan could manage to hold general elections, earlier (first phase—1947-1958) the legislative/constituent
assembly was composed of members elected through an indirect election system. The electoral college during
this phase was based on the members of provincial assemblies; initially elected in the elections of 1945-46
under the British and later provincial assembly elections which were held in 1951 in the Punjab and KP and
after some time in Baluchistan and Sindh. Provincial elections in the East Pakistan were held in 1954. During
the Ayub regime, Basic Democracies System provided electoral college for the national/constituent assembly of
Pakistan. It was for the first time in the history of Pakistan that after 23 years of its inception, general elections
were announced for the election of the members of national assembly under General Yahya Khan. For these
elections a huge political activity was done. Political parties had chance for their election campaign for almost
one year. Elections based on adult franchise, allowing political parties to run a campaign among the common
people and election commission’s assurances to hold free and fair elections raised hopes of people about its
results and change in the regime or the ruling elite. The present paper is an effort to analyse this change to
understand either the election outcome was a political shift in true sense or was only an electoral drift.
Dr Rahat Zubair Malik. (2022) Political Shift or Electoral Drift: A Study of Winners and Runners in 1970 Elections, Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, volume 59, issue 3.
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