Millions cast ballots in Thursday’s general national seembly polls, despite the significant “distrust” in Pakistan’s electoral process. If Dawn’s reporting is to be believed, the PTI candidates supported by Imran Khan and the PML-N candidates endorsed by Nawaz Sharif are in a tight race. The Pakistan Election Commission (ECP) reports that PTI has a six-seat lead over Shehbaz Sharif’s PML-N, with a lead of eight seats.
The three main political parties in Pakistan are the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
As per the ECP data, the seat distribution for three major political parties is as follows:
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- PML-N: 8 seats
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- PTI: 6 seats
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- PPP: 5 seats
The Pakistani election commission issued a late-night warning to poll workers following Thursday’s voting, urging them to provide results as quickly as possible, even if it means waiting up to 10 hours after polls closed, due to the substantial delays in the count of votes.
A total of 590 out of 593 provincial assembly seats and 265 out of 266 national assembly seats were up for grabs in the voting. It was widely anticipated that the record number of voters under the age of 30 would throw a wrench into the results.
Until today, polls had opened promptly and continued uninterrupted until 5 p.m. The Dawn said that Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, in a media conference, said that three polling places in Gujarat were granted time extensions after the relevant ROs asked for them. Despite evidence from all throughout the nation to the contrary, he insisted that not a single voter had experienced any problems with their ballot.
Two hundred sixty-six members are chosen at large via popular vote, while the remaining sixty-seven seats are held in reserve. According to the representation of each political party in the Assembly, 60 of these seats are earmarked for women and 10 for non-Muslims. At least 133 members are needed for a simple majority, although many analysts think there won’t be a clear victor in this election.
