A total of 21.40 million votes were polled for the National Assembly in the General Elections, 1990, out of 48.65 million registered voters, recording a turnout of 44%.
The 1990 general elections were held on 24 October 1990 after the dismissal of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s government by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in August 1990. The Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), led by Nawaz Sharif, won a decisive majority. These were the second competitive multi-party elections since the restoration of democracy in 1988.
Of the 48.65 million registered voters, 26.21 million — 53.9% — were male and 22.44 million — 46.1% — were female. The gender gap in voter registration stood at 3.78 million, representing 7.8% of the total registered electorate.
At the National Assembly level, 21.40 million votes were polled against a registered electorate of 48.65 million, producing an overall turnout of 44%. This figure reflects votes cast across all National Assembly constituencies in the four provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory, and — from 2002 onwards — the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which were subsequently merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through the Twenty-Fifth Constitutional Amendment in 2018.
Gender-disaggregated data on votes polled are not available for the 1990 elections. The systematic disaggregation of votes polled by sex was not incorporated into election administration and result-reporting frameworks prior to the 2018 elections.
Of the votes polled at the National Assembly level, 231,412 ballots — 1.1% of total votes cast — were declared rejected or invalid. Rejected ballots include votes cast on incorrect ballot papers, those on which no mark was made, those bearing marks on multiple candidates, and those bearing marks that could not be attributed to a valid candidate. The rejection rate is a measure of the quality of voter instruction and the accessibility of the ballot design across the electorate.
Across all five assembly elections conducted concurrently in 1990, Punjab recorded the highest absolute number of votes polled, consistent with the province’s share of the national registered electorate. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan returned lower absolute polling figures, in proportion to their smaller registered electorates.
FAFEN’s analysis of Pakistan’s twelve general elections between 1970 and 2024 situates the 1990 National Assembly turnout of 44% within the broader trend of participation rates. The highest recorded National Assembly turnout across this period was 54.9% in 2013. The lowest was 34.8% in 1997.
