Pakistan elections 2024: Pakistan goes to the polls on Thursday (February 8) in the midst of a prolonged economic crisis, raging violence across the provinces and a military-backed crackdown on former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Around 128 million people will vote for 44 political parties vying for 266 seats in the National Assembly, along with 70 seats for women and minorities.
Elaborate security measures have been taken, including the deployment of regular army troops, to maintain peace, given the deteriorating law and order situation in several provinces, particularly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Nearly 650,000 security personnel have been deployed across poll-bound Pakistan, including the personnel of police, civil armed forces, and the armed forces.
Polling will begin at 8:00 am on Thursday and continue without any interval till 5:00 pm. The process of transporting the ballot boxes, ballot papers, and special screens to guard the secrecy of ballots when they are stamped before putting inside the transparent ballot boxes and other relevant election material was going on smoothly at district and sub-district levels across the country.
When will the results be declared?
According to Geo News, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will begin the counting of votes immediately after polling concludes, and the media will start reporting unofficial election results by 6:00 pm. The announcement of election results in Pakistan is conducted in a three-step process: Provisional results, consolidation of results and the declaration of results.
ECP Additional Director General (ADG) Nighat Sadique said that presiding officers were obligated to send the election results to the election commission by the early hours of February 9 (Friday) by 2:00 am. However, in case of any delay, the returning officer (RO) will inquire about the cause of the delay from the presiding officer (PO) and submit it to the ECP.
The ECP ADG was also confident that the election results would be finalised by 10:00am, which would confirm Pakistan would get its newly elected government. A lower voter turnout is expected, as with the 2018 elections when the turnout was below 52 per cent.
Violence rocks Pakistan ahead of polls
A day before the elections, the violence-prone Balochistan province was rocked by twin blasts that killed at least 30 people. The first of the two blasts took place at the office of an independent election candidate in Pishin district, killing 12 people. The second explosion in Qilla Saifullah, a town near the Afghan border, detonated near an office of Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), a religious party that has previously been the target of militant attacks, according to the province's information minister.
Several groups, including the Islamist militant Pakistani Taliban and separatist groups from Balochistan, oppose the Pakistani state and have carried out attacks in recent months. The bombings came despite the deployment of tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces across Pakistan to ensure peace following a recent surge in militant attacks in the country, especially in Balochistan.
Main players of the elections
The triangular contest involves the Pakistan Muslims League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the PTI of imprisoned Imran Khan. Due to the absence of former prime minister Khan, who is in jail after being convicted of corruption charges, the PTI’s fate is difficult to gauge at this point but it may still stage an upset.
The top contender is PML-N and on its ballot are two former prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif. Their ally the PPP, led by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, has a power base in the country’s Sindh province. This year's elections have gained attention for an unprecedented crackdown on cricketer-turned-politician Imran, who was convicted in three cases last week and barred from holding office, apart from having 150 other cases.
Millions of Imran's supporters are looking to rally behind him despite what they call a military-backed crackdown on him and his party. The military wields enormous power in Pakistan but maintains it does not interfere in politics. Analysts say Sharif is being backed by the generals this time after they preferred Khan at the last election in 2018
Apart from Pakistan Muslims League-Nawaz (PML-N), the PPP and PTI, several smaller parties with sizeable vote banks, including the Mutahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl, the Awami National Party, the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam, the Balochistan National Party are also significant players.
A total of 18,000 candidates
At least 128 million Pakistanis out of a population of 241 million are eligible to vote - all those above 18. The voters will cast their ballots for two legislators to represent their constituency - one federally and the other provincially. There are 5,121 candidates contesting for the federal legislature and 12,695 for the provinces.
The National Assembly consists of 336 seats - 266 are decided through direct voting on polling day, while 70 reserved seats - 60 for women and 10 for non-Muslims - are allotted according to the strength of each party in the house. After it is constituted, the National Assembly holds a parliamentary vote to select a leader of the house, who becomes the prime minister. A successful candidate must show a simple majority in the house by garnering the support of more than 169 members.
Polling stations across Pakistan
The ECP set up 9,07,675 polling stations nationwide, including 25,320 for male voters, 23,952 for females, and another 41,403 as mixed polling stations. It said that 44,000 polling stations were normal while 29,985 were declared as sensitive, and 16,766 as highly sensitive.
ECP statistics showed that Punjab has the most number of 7,32,07,896 registered voters followed by Sindh with 2,69,94,769, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 2,19,28,119, Balochistan with 53,71,947 and Federal Capital Islamabad 10,83,029. A countrywide public holiday was declared already to enable registered voters to cast their vote without any hindrance.
Most analysts predict that no single party will come out with a clear majority in parliament, which will necessitate the formation of a coalition government. That means an incoming administration's decision-making will be hobbled at a time when swift and decisive policy-making is required to tackle multiple crises.
(with inputs from PTI)
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