In the recent developments following the arrest of its chairman Imran Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has come out victorious in the Peshawar local government by-election. This triumphant event includes winning positions for the chairman of the tehsil council, Mathra, Havelian, and Abbottabad.
Following the death of the previous tehsil chairman, Farid Ullah from JUI-F, PTI’s Inam Ullah claimed victory with 20,333 votes out of 155 polling stations in Mathra.
The candidate from the Maulana Fazl your Rehman-led Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Rafiullah, could not secure the chairmanship of the tehsil council Mathra, securing only 13,564 votes and placing second.
Other participants in the election included Iftikhar Ahmed of the Jamat-e-Islami I with 9,546 votes, Aziz Ghaffar of ANP with 2,721 votes, Ali Abbas of PPP with 5,377 votes, and Fazlullah of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 3,351 votes. The overall voter turnout was 26%, with 55,607 people casting their votes.
Security Measures and Implications of the By-elections
The declaration of results from the Havelian tehsil council experienced a delay due to an altercation. Nevertheless, independent candidate Uzair Sher Khan emerged victorious after securing 21,464 votes from 134 polling stations in Havelian, while PTI’s Iftikhar Khan and PML-N’s Talha Asif secured 18,521 and 14,892 votes, respectively.
In light of these by-polls, extraordinary security measures were implemented in the two tehsil councils. Senior police officials confirmed the deployment of large police contingents at polling stations and constituencies to maintain peace during the polls. The City Police Chief Ashfaq Anwar, among other officials, visited various polling stations to scrutinize the security arrangements.
In Mathra, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) established 155 polling stations with 496 polling booths for 218,630 voters. Of these, 84 were labelled most sensitive, and 57 were termed sensitive. Similarly, in Havelian, 134 polling stations and 392 polling booths were set up for 165,800 voters, with 40 and 25 polling stations declared most sensitive and sensitive, respectively.
After the by-election results, PTI leader Asad Umar celebrated his party’s success on X, previously known as Twitter. He expressed his joy at the victory of a general party worker like Inam, trained by the Insaf Students Federation (ISF), as a testament to the ideology’s triumph against heavy financial spending.
 secures victory in Peshawar's local government by-elections, gaining positions in the tehsil councils of Mathra, Havelian, and Abbottabad){kind=link}