ISLAMABAD: The high drama involving the general election results delay controversy continued on Saturday after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) failed to issue the complete unofficial poll results even after the third day since the elections were held on Thursday.

Although, the poll body, in a meeting, presided over by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, decided that the unofficial election results would be issued “at the earliest,” yet these results were not issued till the filing of this report late Saturday night. Business Recorder inquired from the ECP as to when it would issue the unofficial results. No response was received till this story was filed.

The unofficial election results obtained by the media indicated that the independents backed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had 102 seats in 336-seat National Assembly, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had 76 seats, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) 54 seats and Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) had 17 seats.

In 371-seat Punjab Assembly, PTI-backed independents had 138 seats, PML-N 137 and PPP 10 seats.

In 168-seat Sindh Assembly, PPP bagged 84 seats, MQM-P 28 seats, PTI-backed independents 14 seats and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) two seats.

In 145-seat Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, PTI-backed independents were leading with 91 seats followed by seven seats of PML-N and five seats of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazal (JUI-F).

In 65-seat Balochistan Assembly, PPP was leading with 11 seats, followed by nine seats of PML-N and JUI—s eight seats, till this story was filed.

The electoral body linked the delay in election results to the unavailability of the internet services. But, the Commission failed to explain the reasons behind the sudden collapse of the EMS.

Earlier, the CEC had told the media that the blockade of cellular and internet services would not affect results transmission through EMS.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024