Sindh provincial election, 1953

A provincial election was held in Sindh in 1953. The election, held in Pakistan's Sindh province, was the first attempt at participatory democracy for the young nation, which received its independence six years earlier. It was neither free no fair.^[1]

The election took place in May after several instances of rescheduling and suffered from the same voting irregularities that other states experienced in the 1951 provincial elections.^[2] Just five years later, President Iskander Mirza suspended elections, declared martial law, and seized power for twenty days until General Ayub Khan overthrew him in the 1958 Pakistani coup d'état, the country's first military coup d'état.^[3]

References

1. Mahendra Prasad Singh and Veena Kukreja (2014). Federalism in South Asia. Routledge.
2. Taylor C. Sherman, William Gould, and Sarah Ansari (2014). From Subjects to Citizens. Cambridge University Press. p. 191.
3. Pakistan Country Study Guide Volume 1 Strategic Information and Developments. IBP, Inc. 2012. p. 51.