Over 81m voters to exercise their franchise rights tomorrow

Over 81 million voters will exercise their rights of franchise by casting votes for electing from among the candidates contesting on the 839 seats of the national and provincial assemblies all across the country. All arrangements have been made for making the election process transparent and peaceful. Polling will kick off at 8.00 A.M. in the morning, which will continue without any break until 5.00 P.M. in the evening. Following the completion of polling, counting will start. Transparent ballot boxes—one for the national assembly and another for the provincial assembly, will be kept for casting of the votes. Over 160 million ballot- papers—the white one for the national assembly and the green one for the provincial assembly, have been printed for this purpose. Election Commission has set up over 64,000 polling stations all across the country—382 polling stations in Islamabad, over 37,600 in Punjab, over 13,400 in Sindh, over 8,100 in NWFP, over 3,400 in Balochistan, while 1,122 polling stations set up in FATA, where more than 5,61,000 presiding officers, assistant presiding officers and polling officers will be posted.
All major parties of the country were participating in the elections, which included Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Awami national Party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Muslim League-N besides a large number of independent candidates are in the field.
Strong contingents of Police and Rangers have been posted at the polling stations for meeting any eventualities and maintaining law and order besides army will remain stand-by for their help. Polling will be held on the 269 seats of the 272 general seats. Elections have been postponed in NA-42 Tribal area VII in view of the bad law and order, while in NA-119 Lahore-II due to the death of a candidate Tariq Banday and in NA-207 Larkana cum Shikarpur due to PPP chairpersons Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto’s murder in suicide attack. Elections would be held later on in these constituencies.
Election Commission said that 2,234 candidates for the 269 general seats of the national assembly were in the field, while 5,017 candidates for 570 seats of the provincial assemblies were contesting and elections in the 7 constituencies out of the 577 would be held later on.