Voters have sealed their verdict and now the counting of votes is underway to determine who the people have elected as their representatives for national and provincial assemblies — on 855 constituencies — in the world’s fifth-biggest democracy.
The 2024 elections surpassed the previous ones in 2018 in various aspects, including a record budget allocation of Rs48 billion, a substantial increase in the number of voters exceeding 50% of the total population, an unprecedented ratio of independent candidates, a total of nearly 18,000 candidates, and a substantial amount of paper required for printing 260 million ballots.
More than 1.4 million polling staff are performing their duties at 90,675 polling stations — of which 16,766 have been declared as extremely sensitive. To ensure voter turnout, February 8 was declared as a public holiday.
Read the results on our X account.
The polling, which kick-started at 8am, continued till 5pm throughout the country with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) deciding against extending the time for polling despite reports of irregularities from multiple constituencies.
Mobile and internet services are suspended across the country due to security situation. Top political parties including the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have demanded the immediate restoration of services.
The election results are expected to be completed a few hours after midnight and the complete compilation might be done in the early hours of Friday — through the ECP’s Result Management System.
An hour after the polling concludes, the media can air the results.
As many as 90,675 polling stations have been established nationwide for the general elections. Of these, 27,628 polling stations have been declared “sensitive” polling stations, while 18,437 have been declared “extremely sensitive”.
500,000 security personnel including the Pakistan Army, paramilitary forces, and police, have been deputed for election duties throughout the country.
