Despite an underlying ‘distrust’ in the electoral exercise, millions queued up to vote in Thursday’s long-overdue elections.
• PTI claims it can form govt in centre, two provinces
• Barring Karachi, PPP seems set to retain its hold in Sindh
• PML-N doing better in central Punjab, some other areas
However, voters’ hopes of seeing some results were left unfulfilled till late in the night, with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) only able to announce three results by 4am on Friday morning.
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According to the ECP, Fazal Hakim Khan was successful on PK-6 Swat-IV with 25,330 votes; Sami Ullah was successful on PK-76 Peshawar-V with 18,888 votes; and Ali Shah was successful on PK-4 Swat-II with 30,022 votes. All three were independent candidates backed by the PTI.
Citizens mostly had to rely on various private television channels relaying unofficial, tentative results based on proprietary sources.
Earlier in the day, voters, both young and old, had started queuing up shortly before 8am outside the 90,000 polling stations designated for the polls, eager to discharge their civic duty. Many more would turn up over the course of the day. More than 128 million were eligible for exercising the right to franchise in what had been described as the ‘largest’ elections in the country’s history.
