To form a government, a party needs to win 133 of the 265 seats being contested.
islamabad:
Pakistan’s top election watchdog, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), said on Monday that, contrary to previous claims, internet and mobile services were suspended on Thursday, when voting was held across the country for the general election. He blamed the incident, saying it had “caused trouble.” ” and announced the results within the deadline.
Amid rumors of horse-trading without a clear majority and delays in announcing results for all seats in the National Assembly (NA), the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has also warned that the delay in results will have an adverse impact. He claimed that there was no. a particular political party. ”
After the first results trickled in late that same night, the final results of the NA polls were only announced on Sunday, with all political parties, the public and observers also coming to condemn the ECP.
On polling day, Pakistan’s Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja said that the country’s Election Management System (EMS) does not rely on the internet and there would be no impact on operations due to the internet.
Various government agencies had assured that internet services would continue to work on election day, but the terrorist attacks the day before that killed at least 30 people forced the transitional government to suspend mobile services due to the deteriorating security situation. It was done.
The ECP said in a statement on Monday that the (internet outage) measures had a significant impact on the coordination and transportation of election materials.
The statement said, “Except for some constituencies, election results were known within a day and a half,” and that “the delay in results in some constituencies did not benefit or harm any particular political party.” Stated. The election monitoring agency highlighted that the first results of the 2024 elections were announced at 2am, while the 2018 election results were announced at 4am.
The first election management system (EMS) app was used to relay election results from each polling station to a centralized system where all results were tallied.
Two days before polling day, ECP Secretary Syed Asif Hussain also said that even if there is an internet outage, the EMS will work as returning officers (ROs) can tally all the results offline.
He claimed that they have provided satellite connectivity to over 60 ROs in remote areas and are keeping them connected.
National Assembly results showed that independents backed by former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party won 101 seats. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), led by another former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, won 75 seats, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), led by former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, won 54 seats, and MQM -P secured 17 seats.
Among other political parties, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) won 4 seats, PML Quaid won 3 seats, Istekham-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) and Balochistan National Party (BNP) won 2 seats each. .
To form a government, a party needs to win 133 of the 265 seats in parliament.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
