Election

ISLAMABAD: In a move that will finally lead to the first-ever provincial assembly elections in the territories formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) in the next few months, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday determined and notified the share of tribal districts in the provincial assembly’s seats.

The decision was in line with Article 106 of the constitution amended through the 25th Amendment in May last year and last-minute promulgation of an ordinance to avert disenfranchisement of contiguous tribal regions. The ordinance amends Section 20 of the Elections Act, 2017, inserting a new sub-section (2A) which reads: “For the purpose of delimiting constituencies, for the general seats of the provincial assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for tribal areas, two or more separate areas may be grouped into one constituency for their elections to be held in 2019 and by-elections related therein and thereafter this sub-section shall stand omitted.”

According to the share determined by the ECP, Bajaur and Khyber will have three general seats each, Mohmand, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan will have two seats each and one seat will go to the Frontier Regions.

ECP notifies share of tribal districts in provincial assembly

Under the amended Article 106, the KP Assembly will have 145 seats, including 115 general, 26 reserved for women and four for minorities. Fata will have 21 seats, including 16 general, four for women and one reserved for non-Muslims.

Under the amendment, the elections for these seats were to be held within one year after the 2018 general elections.

A senior ECP official when contacted said the elections for 16 general seats of the KP Assembly will take place in May or June this year and a notification to this effect will be issued in March.

The current calendar year appears to be challenging one for the ECP as it has ordered revision of the electoral rolls and plans to update the voters’ list by June 30. That means the commission will have to give priority to tribal districts to make sure that the coming provincial assembly polls there were not affected.

The ECP is also supposed to conduct local government polls in Balochistan as the term of the LG bodies in the province would be expiring by the end of the current month. Likewise, it will be conducting local government polls in cantonments. The four-year term of local bodies in KP will also be expiring in September this year.

Meanwhile, as the deadline for around 15 million voters enrolled in areas other than their addresses on computerised national identity cards (CNICs) to get registered as voters on one of the two addresses mentioned on their CNICs expired on December 31, the ECP has ordered revision of electoral rolls under which those who failed to act would be registered as voters at their permanent addresses.

Sub-section 4 of Section 27 of the Elections Act reads: “Notwithstanding, anything contained in this section or any other provision of this Chapter, the registration of a voter at an address other than the permanent or temporary address mentioned in his National Identity Card shall remain valid till he applies for transfer of his vote or for modification or renewal of his National Identity Card in which case his vote shall be registered according to the temporary or permanent address mentioned in the National Identity Card.” While a proviso with the sub-section reads: “Provided that this sub-section (4) including this proviso shall stand omitted on 31st December, 2018.”

The ECP official said the votes of those who did not avail the facility of transferring votes to addresses mentioned on CNICs have rendered ineffective.

He said in exercise of its powers under Article 219-A of the Constitution and Section 36 of the Elections Act the commission has ordered revision of electoral rolls so that the fundamental right of vote of the people could be protected.

While the ECP in principle had decided to shift all those at their permanent addresses, it has given another chance to them to make a choice out of the permanent or temporary addresses by filling Form-21 and submitting the same with registration officers / district election commissioners or assistant registration officers in their areas.

The voters can get information about the registration of their votes by sending SMS on 8300.

QUETTA: Hazara Democratic Party’s (HDP) candidate Qadir Nayel won the by-election on Monday for the Balochistan Assembly’s constituency of BP-26 (Quetta-III).

According to unofficial results, Mr Nayel — who was enjoying the support of the ruling Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), Awami National Party (ANP), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Sami and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) — obtained 5,272 votes against 4,257 ballots polled by his rival Maulana Wali Muhammad Turabi.

Maulana Turabi of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) was the joint candidate of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F), Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Maulana Turabi contested for the same constituency in the general election last year, but lost to the HDPs’ secretary general, Ahmed Kohzad.

However, the seat later fell vacant after the Election Commission of Pakistan disqualified Mr Kohzad by declar-ing him an Afghan national.

His rivals had challenged his Pakistani citizenship.

As many as 18 people from main political parties and independent candidates were in the run.

A former MPA, Agha Syed Ali Raza of Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen, also took part in the by-election.

Amid tight security polling started at 8am and continued till 5pm without any interval. The voters’ turnout was rather slow in the morning due to the cold weather.

However, after 11am a large number voters turned out to vote and long queues were witnessed at the polling stations, especially those meant for women.

No major untoward incident was reported from any area of the constituency even though all the 49 polling stations had been declared “sensitive”.

However, two workers of the HDP and MWM were injured in a clash in the Hazara Town area.

Security forces rushed to the site and brought the situation under control and shifted the injured to the Bolan Medical College Hospital.

Over 5,000 security personnel had been deployed at the polling stations to ensure security there.

QUETTA: The by-election to a Balochistan Assem­bly seat will be held on Monday (today).

The seat had fallen vacant after the Election Commis­sion of Pakistan disqualified Ahmed Kohzad, the secretary general of Hazara De­­mocratic Party (HDP), for being an Afghan national.

Mr Kohzad was elected from PB-26 (Quetta-III) in the 2018 general elections by defeating a candidate of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F). Then opponents challenged his Pakistani citizenship.

According to the Provin­cial Election Commission, 18 candidates are contesting the by-election, but the main contest is expected between Qadir Nail of the HDP, Maulana Wali Turabi of the JUI-F and Syed Mohammad Raza of the Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen.

Maulana Turabi is enjoying support of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Balochistan National Party-Mengal, Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakh­­tun­khwa Milli Awami Party, and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, while the Awami National Party, Balochistan Awami Party, JUI-Sami and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf were backing Qadir Nail.

According to the Provin­cial Election Commission, election material has been handed over to presiding officers of 49 polling stations where 57,675 registered male and female voters would cast their votes.

Forty polling stations have been declared sensitive and nine very sensitive.

Official sources said that Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code would be imposed in the constituency on Monday and no one, except police and Frontier Corps personnel, will be allowed to carry weapons.

Over 5,000 personnel of police and FC will be deployed in the 49 polling stations and army troops will help them in case of any untoward situation.

QUETTA: The Balochistan Awami Party’s (BAP) candidate won by-election on PB-47 (Keck-3), Returning Officer Abdul Wahid Baloch announced on Friday.

According to unofficial results released by the provincial election commissioner, winning candidate Lala Rasheed received 7,088 votes while retired Major Jameel Ahmed Dashti of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal came on second position with 5,758 votes.

The Balochistan Assembly seat had fallen vacant after the Election Commission of Pakistan had disqualified Mir Rauf Rind, the winning candidate from the constituency in July 25 general elections, for his dual nationality. His opponents had challenged his election on the ground of his dual nationality.

National Party candidate Fida Hussain came on third position with 3,055 votes.

Barkat Ali, an independent candidate, received only 925 votes.

According to the ECP, 17,422 out of total 56,472 votes were polled in the by-election (8,724 female votes and male 8,698 votes). As many as 401 votes were rejected during the count. The percentage of polled votes stood at 30.85.

GWADAR: Amid tight security, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has completed all arrangements for holding the by-election on Balochistan Assembly’s seat PB-47 in Kech district, which will be held on Thursday (today).

The seat had fallen vacant after the ECP declared the result of July 25 election null and void after opponents challenged election of winner Mir Rauf Rind of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), who is a dual national.

An official of ECP Balochistan said that the election material had been distributed to the staff in Kech district. “Election material to Dasht and Mand areas was distributed on Tuesday while ballot papers, boxes and other material for city areas have been dispatched,” the official said.

More than 56,472 registered voters —31,417 male and 25,055 female — will cast their vote for the PB-47 seat.

ISLAMABAD: In a controversial move, around 15 million voters enrolled in areas other than their addresses on computerised national identity cards (CNICs) will be shifted by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to their permanent addresses, if they fail to decide where they want to be registered as voters by the deadline of Dec 31.

“A decision in principle has been taken to register all voters enrolled on a ‘third address’ on the permanent addresses mentioned on their CNICs after the expiry of the deadline”, a senior ECP official told Dawn on Saturday.

He said under Section 27 of the Elections Act, a person shall be deemed to be resident of an electoral area if his temporary or permanent address on their CNIC issued by the National Database and Registration Authority lies in the said electoral area.

ISLAMABAD: The continuing tepid response from overseas Pakistanis to the internet-voting facility has raised questions whether the grant of voting rights was a demand of the expatriates after all.

Informed sources told Dawn that out of total 4,677 Pakistanis from Lahore’s PP-168 settled in dozens of countries across the globe, only three individuals — one each from Germany, Spain and the United Arab Emirates — chose to get themselves registered to vote in the by-election in the constituency scheduled for Dec 13.

This means only 0.06 per cent of them opted for registration and it is not certain if they will be voting. The voters from the constituency had been given 15 days for online registration.

The Punjab Assembly seat from PP-168 had been vacated by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz stalwart Khawaja Saad Rafique following his election as a member of the National Assembly from NA-125 in by-poll. He defeated Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Humayun Akhtar.

This appears to be the second failed experiment of I-voting carried out on the orders of Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar. The first pilot project was conducted by providing the facility to the voters from 35 constituencies of national and provincial assemblies on Oct 14.

Each vote cast by overseas Pakistanis in those by-elections cost the national exchequer over Rs15,000. An amount of Rs95 million was incurred on the exercise. Out of the 7,364 registered overseas voters, only 6,233 cast their votes.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had allowed overseas Pakistanis to vote through the internet and declared that votes would not be included in the count if some controversy cropped up, but later decided to include them in the final count. During the process of online registration in September, only 7,419 of the 632,000 overseas Pakistanis got themselves registered for I-voting and of them 6,322 (83.56pc) had actually availed of the facility.

Section 94 of the Elections Act reads: “The Commission may conduct pilot projects for voting by Overseas Pakistanis in by-elections to ascertain the technical efficacy, secrecy, security and financial feasibility of such voting and shall share the results with the Government, which shall, within fifteen days from the commencement of a session of a House after the receipt of the report, lay the same before both Houses of Majlis-e-Shoora (parliament).”

The Supreme Court had, however, ordered that the votes be included in the final count if the exercise was completed successfully.

The ECP had been pleading before the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms that it would be unwise to introduce the system in haste. The commission was of the view that the mechanism would be complicated in the context of ensuring election principles, including secrecy of ballot.

A task force’s report on I-voting submitted by the ECP to the apex court and placed on its official website had noted that the system did not ensure ballot secrecy as required under Clause 94 of the Elections Act 2017 and Article 226 of the Constitution. The shortcoming is inherent to the proposed model of the internet-voting system.

The report stated that foreign agencies posed an entirely different class of threat as compared to ordinary hackers. These organizations had vast resources and capabilities at their disposal, it said, adding that their attacks could be extremely stealthy and of a magnitude that was sometimes difficult for a layman to even comprehend.

KARACHI: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has set Dec 31 as last date for getting addresses in the voter list changed.

Any voter who wants registration of his vote on his temporary address or to get it changed from his temporary to permanent address could avail the facility by the deadline.

According to the ECP, if the intending voter does not get his address corrected, his vote would be registered automatically on his permanent address.

LAHORE: In a close contest, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf managed to win two seats in the Senate by-election held in the Punjab Assembly on Thursday.

PTI’s Waleed Iqbal defeated PML-N’s Saud Majeed, former MNA and senator, on a general seat with a margin of 10 votes. Mr Iqbal polled 184 votes while Mr Majeed managed to secure 176.

Similarly, PTI’s Seemi Ezdi with 183 votes defeated PML-N’s former federal minister Saira Afzal Tarar who polled 175 votes. Ms Ezdi is the sister of former PTI secretary general Jahangir Tareen.

Seven votes for general seat and nine for women’s reserved seat were rejected.

MUZAFFARABAD: The ruling PML-N party clinched victory in a by-election held on Sunday in the Poonch district of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

The seat fell vacant after the death of Khan Bahadar Khan, senior adviser to the AJK prime minister on Aug 27.

Though there were nine candidates in the fray, the real contest was between Sardar Amir Altaf of the PML-N and Sardar Ghulam Sadiq of the PPP.

According to unofficial results announced late on Sunday night, Mr Altaf, who is the grandson of the late lawmaker, secured 20,874 votes against 14,731 clinched by Mr Sadiq. Kashan Masood of the Muslim Conference bagged 3,283 votes while PTI candidate Sardar Sawar Khan secured 3,231 votes.

Though Mr Khan is a senior political activist, he was considered to be a novice in the constituency because he had been living in the United States for a long time.

There were a total of 75,202 registered voters in the constituency.

KARACHI/PESHAWAR: In another setback to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf after the last week by-polls, the ruling party in Sunday’s by-polls lost a Khyber Pakh­tunkhwa Assembly seat in Peshawar though its candidates were leading on both the National and Sindh Assembly seats in Karachi as counting was under way till late hours.

The three seats, KP-71, PS-111, and NA-247, were vacated by PTI leaders Shah Farman, Imran Ismael and Arif Alvi who were appointed on the key positions of KP and Sindh governors and President, respectively, after the July 25 general elections.

According to unofficial results, ANP candidate Salahuddin won KP-71 seat by defeating his rival Zulfiqar Ahmed, a brother of KP governor, in Peshawar. Mr Salahuddin received 11,224 votes against the runner-up who secured 9,755 votes. This was the second Peshawar seat of the provincial assembly lost by the ruling PTI as in the last week by-elections ANP’s Samar Haroon Bilour had won in PK-78 (Peshawar) constituency by defeating rival PTI candidate.

Voters’ turnout was not encouraging in Peshawar, where it stood at 21 per cent, and Karachi where last week around 16pc voters had turned up to cast their vote. However, overall polling remained peaceful.

Initial unofficial reports coming from the polling stations in NA-247 constituency where counting got completed in the evening suggested that PTI’s Aftab Siddiqui was leading with 32,464 votes while Sadiq Iftikhar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan was holding to the runner-up position with 14,114 votes. Prominent among other candidates were Qaiser Nizamani of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Arshad Vohra of the Pak Sarzameen Party, Ali Nawab of Sunni Tehreek and seven independent candidates. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal did not contest the NA-247 seat which was vacated by Arif Alvi.

Similarly, in PS-111 constituency PTI’s Shehzad Qureshi was set to win the provincial assembly seat with 11,658 votes while PPP’s Mohammad Fayyaz Pirzada was in the second place with 5,780 votes as counting was under way till filing of this report in the late hours of Sunday.

Just like last week by-elections, polling in NA-247 and PS-111 sparked little activity, with deserted streets in many parts of the two constituencies where Rangers and police officials besides army troops had been deployed to make the whole exercise peaceful.

While there was no report of violence or any untoward incident from any of the constituencies, the display of party badges by polling agents at some polling stations did ignite a controversy.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s Taj Haider, who is in charge of the party’s election cell, said that at many polling stations PTI polling agents wore their party badges. He said verbal complaints were made by the PPP to the returning officer of NA-247, “who allowed entry of our polling agents on polling stations Nos 30 and 31 in Hoor Bai Hajiani School, No5 in Eden Grammar School, and Nos 22, 23, and 24 in G. Allana School”.

“Bringing party badges in polling stations is a gross violation,” said Mr Haider.

Separately, the MQM-P leaders addressing an urgent press conference late Sunday night rejected results of the both constituencies.

Camps of political parties, which had pitted their candidates in the by-elections on NA-247, were put up outside almost every polling station in the neighbourhoods of Defence, Clifton, Bath Island, Saddar, Burnes Road, Kharadar and Ranchhore Line. Flags of PTI, MQM-P, and PPP were ubiquitous in the length and breadth of the areas constituting the constituency, while portraits of candidates and party leaders of Pak Sarzameen Party were also seen in many areas.

Interestingly, camps of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) were also seen in some areas with party flags and banners though none of the dozen contesting candidates belonged to it.

Till afternoon voters’ turnout was miserably poor in the entire constituency. Some areas of Saddar, Zamzama, Delhi Colony, PNT Colony, Gizri and Old City quarters were seen relatively vibrant where voters gathered outside their party camps in the late afternoon. Some polling booths in Defence and Clifton reported voters’ number in double digits. Later reports suggested the turnout relatively improved at the polling stations in the evening.

Some impression suggested TLP’s not contesting in the by-election could affect the turnout more as its candidate came distant second to the PTI’s candidate.

Most areas falling in NA-247, a part of which forms PS-111, have been considered stronghold of PTI since 2013. MQM and PML-N had won it in earlier elections barring Abdus Sattar Afghani of the MMA who had been elected from here in 2002.

As the PPP has pockets of support in the NA-247 constituency, it did not leave the ground uncontested for the PTI or the MQM-P.

In July 25 general elections President Arif Alvi had secured 91,020 votes in NA-247 constituency and comfortably defeated TLP’s Zaman Jafri who bagged 24,680 votes while MQM-P’s Farooq Sattar could get 24,146 votes.

Previously, Karachi’s South district had three NA seats. NA-247 was created this year as a result of fresh delimitation of constituencies for the general elections after amalgamating former NA-249 (Kharadar, Ranchhore Line, Old City areas) and NA-250 (Defence-Clifton, Burnes Road) constituencies.

According to the Election Commis­sion of Pakistan, there were a total of 546,451 voters in the constituency.

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday issued notifications of 22 candidates who had won the Oct 14 by-elections held on 35 seats of national and provincial assemblies.

A spokesman for the ECP said the notifications of the remaining 13 successful candidates had been withheld as they had so far not submitted the details of election expenses as required under the law.

The by-elections had been held on 11 national and 24 provincial assembly seats. Most of the seats had been vacated by those elected on more than one seat in the July 25 general elections, including Prime Minister Imran Khan who had won elections from all the five National Assembly constituencies he had contested.

The by-elections were held on eight NA seats from Punjab and one each in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Islamabad. Similarly, polling was held in 11 constituencies of the Punjab Assembly, nine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and two each in Sindh and Balochistan.

Spokesman says notifications of 13 remaining successful candidates have been withheld

However, the ECP issued the victory notifications of seven NA candidates, eight Punjab Assembly candidates, three KP Assembly candidates and two candidates each of the Sindh and Balochistan assemblies.

The ECP has notified the victory of Zahid Akram Durrani of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal from Bannu (NA-35), Malik Sohail Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) from Attock (NA-56), Sheikh Rashid Shafique of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) from Rawalpindi (NA-60), Chaudhry Salik Hussain from Chakwal (NA-65), Moonis Elahi from Gujrat (NA-69), Khawaja Saad Rafique from Lahore (NA-131) and Mohammad Alamgir Khan of the PTI from Karachi (NA-243).

The ECP has stopped the notifications of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi from Lahore (NA-124), Ali Awan of the PTI from Islamabad (NA-53), Mansoor Hayat Khan of the PTI from Rawalpindi (NA-63) and Ali Gohar Khan of the PML-N from Faisalabad (NA-103).

The ECP spokesman said the notifications of the remaining successful candidates would be issued when they would submit the details of their election expenses to the commission.

ISLAMABAD: Each vote cast by overseas Pakistanis in Sunday’s by-elections cost the national exchequer over Rs15,000, informed sources told Dawn.

An Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) official said that an amount of Rs95 million was incurred on the exercise to allow the overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes through the internet-voting system.

He said the major chunk was spent on development of i-voting software, adding that other procedural expenses were negligible. He said that out of 7,364 registered overseas voters, only 6,233 cast their votes, with the cost of each vote exceeding Rs15,000.

The ECP had allowed the overseas Pakistanis to vote through internet as a pilot project on the directives of the Supreme Court and declared that the votes would not be included in the count if some controversy cropped up.

However, the ECP has now decided to include overseas Pakistanis’ votes in the final count for the by-polls held in 35 constituencies of National and provincial assemblies.

ECP decides to include expats’ votes in final count; both ruling and opposition parties have improved their numbers

ECP spokesman Chaudhry Nadeem Qasim said that details of all votes cast through internet had been sent to the returning officers (ROs) concerned. “The ROs will add these results to their final tallies,” he added.

During the process of online registration in September, only 7,419 of the 632,000 overseas Pakistanis had got them registered for i-voting and out of them only 6,322 (83.56 per cent) had actually availed of the facility.

The proportion of votes cast by registered overseas voters remained 100pc in only three provincial assembly constituencies where their number was very low — 23 votes cast in PP-222, 20 in PP-164 and only one in PB-35.

In terms of numbers, the constituents from NA-243 (Karachi) settled abroad left all behind — 1,112 (82pc) out of the total 1,353 registered voters availed of i-voting facility.

In NA-131 (Lahore) — where Prime Minister Imran Khan had defeated PML-N stalwart Khawaja Saad Rafique in the July 25 general elections — 991 (88pc) of the total 1,126 registered voters cast their votes, while 561 (80pc) of the 698 registered voters cast their votes in NA-69, 460 (81pc) of the 567 registered voters in NA-53 (Islamabad), 400 (78pc) of the 510 registered voters in NA-124 (Lahore), 281 ((92pc) of the 304 voters in NA-35 (Bannu), 265 (83pc) of the 321 registered voters in NA-63 (Rawalpindi), 257 (82pc) of the 312 registered voters in NA-65 (Chakwal) and 202 (88pc) of the 230 registered voters in NA-56 (Attock).

Among the provincial assembly constituencies, 200 overseas Pakistanis 227 out of the total 253 registered in PP-27 (Jhelum) exercised their right to vote, followed by PK-44 where 149 (81pc) of the 185 registered voters cast their votes through internet.

Party positions

Although the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has lost some ground by suffering defeat in a few constituencies that it had won in the general elections, the outcome of the by-polls will have no impact on the outlook of the National Assembly where the PTI along with its allies will continue to retain majority.

Both the treasury and opposition parties have improved their numbers in the National Assembly, with the PTI and allies getting six and the opposition parties five seats out of the 11 contested in Sunday’s by-polls.

The latest position of parties in the NA shows that the PTI will now have 155 members whereas the number of PML-N members has increased to 85 from 81. The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal has also improved its strength in the lower house of parliament with the victory of Zahid Durrani from Bannu. The MMA will now have 16 members in the NA.

With the victories of the sons of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, the PML-Q has also improved its position in the NA. It will now have five members in the assembly.

The strength of the ruling alliance has now reached 183 in the 341-member house, where one seat is still vacant. The opposition parties will now have 158 members in the house.

The ruling alliance comprises the PTI (155 members), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (seven), PML-Q (five), Balochistan Awami Party (five), Balochistan National Party (four), Grand Democratic Alliance (three), Awami Muslim League (one), Jamhoori Watan Party (one) and two independents.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz with 85 seats is the largest party in the opposition group, followed by the Pakistan Peoples Party (54 seats), MMA (16), Awami National Party (one) and two independents.

ISLAMABAD: The website dedicated to provide overseas Pakistanis with a right of internet voting sustained multiple cyber attacks, sources told Geo News.

Voting for by-election on 35 national and provincial assemblies commenced at 8am across the country, with more than 300 candidates, including some political bigwigs, in the running.

According to sources, the i-voting website sustained 10,000 cyber attacks simultaneously. The Nadra authorities were, however, able to thwart the attacks and the website from going down.

The website did not go down even once in seven hours, sources added.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Director General IT Muhammad Khizar Aziz told Geo News that the website has been loading slowly due to a lot of traffic and that that it was usual in the case. The ECP website is working properly, he said.

Seats up for grabs in the by-elections comprised 11 from National Assembly, 11 from Punjab Assembly, nine from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and two each from Sindh and Balochistan.

ISLAMABAD: A total of 370 candidates are in the electoral arena for 35 constituencies of the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies, as voters in these constituencies will exercise their right to vote today (Sunday) while over 7,000 overseas Pakistanis are also expected to take part in the bye-poll process through I-voting.

As many as 661 candidates have filed nomination papers, of whom, 271 either withdrew or retired, whereas the papers of 16 were rejected and hence nominations of 645 were validly accepted. However, almost half of them have bowed out from the poll process. The bye-election enables overseas Pakistanis to mark their participation in the polling for the first time. The Election Commission of Pakistan has again put in place the result transmission system (RTS) with the instructions to the polling staff not to wait if it develops fault (s) and rush to the relevant returning officer along with the results. The failure of RTS in July 25 general election had generated a massive criticism from different segments of the society, particularly political parties. However, the process is on for the constitution of a parliamentary commission to probe alleged rigging and the RTS failure.

The Election Commission notified on Saturday Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Ahmad Khan as returned (unopposed) candidate from PP-87, Mianwali. Referring to the Lahore High Court verdict, the Election Commission has directed the electronic media not to issue unofficial results of the bye-election before 6 pm Sunday. Out of total 35 constituencies, 11 belong to the National Assembly and 24 to the provincial assemblies where the polling will commence at 8 am and continue till 5 pm without any break. On its part, the Election Commission has already completed all the arrangements for the smooth conduct of the polls, as ballot papers have also been handed over to the presiding officers, which will be distributed under the supervision of the Pakistan Army. Besides other arrangements, the Election Commission has established a control room for guidance of overseas Pakistanis with regards to the electoral process.

In a statement on the eve of polling, the Election Commission directed those overseas Pakistanis, who may not have yet received voting password, to contact the control room at 0092512778899. The registered voters will not be able to cast their votes without a password. The Election Commission has issued passwords to the registered 7,364 overseas Pakistanis, who fall in these 35 constituencies.