Park pollster blames internet suspension for delay in results

To form a government, a party must win 133 of the 265 contested seats.

Islamabad:

Contrary to earlier claims, Pakistan’s top election watchdog, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), on Monday blamed the suspension of internet and mobile services during Thursday’s national election polls, saying it had indeed “created obstacles”. “Results announced on time.

Amid rumors of haggling in the absence of a clear majority and delays in declaration of results for all seats in the National Assembly (NA), the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) also claimed that the delay in declaration of results did not harm “any particular political party.”

After the first results came in that night, the final results of the National polls were not released until Sunday, prompting all political parties, ordinary citizens and observers to condemn the ECP.

On polling day, Pakistan’s Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja said that its Election Management System (EMS) does not rely on the Internet and its work will not be affected.

Even though various government agencies have guaranteed that Internet services will continue to operate normally on polling day, two terrorist attacks that killed at least 30 people the previous day prompted the caretaker government to suspend mobile services due to the deteriorating security situation.

The European Communist Party said in a statement on Monday that the move (suspension of the Internet) severely affected the coordination and transportation of electoral materials.

“With the exception of some constituencies, the results were obtained within a day and a half,” the statement said, adding that “the delay in results in some constituencies does not benefit or harm any particular political party.” The election watchdog stressed that the first priority for the 2024 elections The results were received at 2am, while the 2018 election results were received at 4am.

The Electoral Management System (EMS) application was first launched to forward election results from each polling station to a centralized system where all results are tabulated.

Two days before polling day, ECP Secretary Syed Asif Hussain also said that the EMS would be functioning even if the internet went down as the electoral officials (ROs) would still be able to compile all the results offline.

He claimed that more than 60 ROs in remote areas are equipped with satellite connectivity to stay connected.

National Assembly results showed independents backed by former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won 101 seats. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), led by another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, won 75 seats, and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), led by former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, won 54 seats. , MQM-P won 17 seats.

Among other parties, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) won four seats, PML-Quaid won three seats and Independence Party of Pakistan (IPP) and Balochistan National Party (BNP) won two seats each.

To form a government, a party must win 133 of the 265 contested seats in the National Assembly.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)