Hours after polling, nation awaits final results of elections

KARACHI:

Despite polling concluding at 5pm in the general elections on Thursday, the nation is waiting for the results after more than seven hours have passed at midnight. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has not given any reason leading to expression of suspicions from contesting parties.

State TV, private channels, and local media initiated the process of announcing results, but progress has been slow, with results from certain constituencies in Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa still pending.

Although results are coming in from interior Sindh, the results in the provincial capital and the country's largest city, Karachi, are emerging at a slow pace.

Similarly, in the largest province of the country, Punjab, results are also being received slowly. The wait for results is ongoing from K-P and Balochistan. Concerns and reservations have been expressed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf regarding this delay.

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It should be noted that in 2018, when the results were initially announced through RTS (Result Transmission System), the system faced a halt during the night, and the process of result transmission could not proceed.

When the results were delayed until the next day, political parties and leaders, including the PPP and PML-N, expressed concerns and reservations.

It is evident that this time around, the Election Commission of Pakistan introduced a new system called the Election Management System (EMS) to organise the results. Presiding officers of this system were instructed to send results via mobile.

However, on February 8, the mobile network was shut down for security reasons, causing a delay in the announcement of results.

ECP officials had informed the media before the elections that if results could also be sent via the internet, presiding officers would themselves collect the results and take them to the returning officers.