The British had given the election system a communal bias in undivided India. Seats were allotted to religious communities and they voted on the basis of separate electorates for members of their own denominations. The first provincial elections (1951 to 1954) after the establishment of Pakistan were held on this basis.

However, during the debates on the framing of a constitution for independent Pakistan, the largest federating unit (East Pakistan) demanded its abandonment in favor of joint electorate (i.e., a single electoral roll and removal of the condition of communal voting), while the western wing insisted on retaining the separate electorates. The matter could not be resolved till the adoption of the 1956 Constitution and it was left to be decided by the Provincial Legislatures of the Eastern and Western Wings. The East Wing Assembly voted against the separate electorates and the Western Assembly in its favor.

However, by 1958 the Western Assembly had changed its mind and a law was made to switch over to joint electorate. The elections of 1962, 1965, 1970 and 1977 were held on the basis of joint electorate. Under the second martial law, a general election was held in 1970 for unicameral legislature at both the federal and the provincial levels. The results of this election were not respected by the then government. The biggest federating unit, East Pakistan, was forced out of the state after a major conflict that became the independent republic of Bangladesh.

After imposing Martial Law in July 1977, General Zia ul Haq fixed October 18, 1977 as the date for a general election without any indication that the joint electorate system was going to be given up. This election was in any case called off and it was in 1978, when polling was scheduled for November 17, 1978, that General Zia ul Haq announced his plans to revive separate electorates. This was eventually done in 1985. The elections since then have been held on the basis of separate electorates till 1997.

Pakistani nation has remained under the spell of the British parliamentary and electoral system since 1950s which had failed to deliver, either because the environment is unsuited to the genius of the people, or the practitioners are not sincere and honest, or the electoral system was made defective and toothless because the authority holding elections, i.e. the Election Commission was not vested with all the necessary powers that enable it to hold free and fair elections, as is the case in other countries.