Counting begins after peaceful polling in GB
islamabad — Wearing face masks, the people of Gilgit Baltistan voted on Sunday in the third legislative assembly election amidst tight security.
The voting which commenced at 8am ended peacefully without any break at 5pm and no untoward incident was reported.
The counting of votes has started and complete results are expected by Monday.
There were 24 seats for the contest but polling on one seat had been postponed because of death of a candidate.
Around 745,361 voters cast votes. As many as 330 candidates, including four women, were in the contest.
It is the third election for the legislative assembly after political reform introduced in 2010.
Out of 1,141 polling stations, 577 were declared sensitive and 297 highly sensitive.
Over 15,000 security personnel from Gilgit-Baltistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan were deployed at polling stations. However, army personnel were not deployed.
Caretaker chief minister Mir Afzal Khan and Chief Election Commissioner Raja Shehbaz Khan visited different polling stations and expressed satisfaction over election arrangements, process and security-related matters.
Talking to media, Raja Shehbaz said the polling process continued smoothly and no complains or reservations were received from any candidate or voters across Gilgit Baltistan.
Mir Afzal said that he was fully satisfied with the election process. He congratulated the Election Commission for making excellent arrangements for elections.
A fierce contest involving Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has been predicted by experts.
Traditionally, the party ruling
in Islamabad has won the GilgitBaltistan polls. The first election was won by the PPP when it got 15 seats, followed by PML-N, the then ruling party in 2015 when it won 16 seats.
The PPP has fielded 23 candidates, while the PML-N has 21 aspirants. Both parties are contesting solo while the PTI has made a seat adjustment on two constituencies with Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen.
Lately Tehreek-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqhi-Jafria announced its support for the PPP but there were no seat arrangements. —