Pakistan Elections: Re-Polling Ordered At Several Booths Amid 'Rigging' Claims

New Delhi: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to conduct re-elections at various polling places across the country after verifying complaints of voting material being snatched and damaged, as reported by Geo News. The election authority is in the last phase of announcing the vote results as the compilation process has been going on for 48 hours, after overcoming all the challenges in holding nationwide elections on February 8.

Geo News reported that the commission acted on the complaints from different parts of the country about incidents of voting material being snatched and damaged at various polling stations, which led the local election officials to suspend the voting processes. The top electoral body has recently announced that re-polling will be held at multiple polling stations on February 15.

The results from these polling stations will be declared after the re-polling event is over. The following is the list of constituencies and the number of polling stations where re-polling was ordered, according to Geo News.

NA-88 Khushab-II – Punjab Re-polling will be done at 26 polling stations after voting materials were destroyed by a mob of angry people

PS-18 Ghotki-I --Sinh Re-polling will take place in two polling stations of the constituency after voting material was snatched by unknown individuals on February 8.

PK-90 Kohat-I – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa The ECP has ordered re-polling at 25 polling stations in the constituency due to voting material being damaged by terrorists on election day.

The electoral body has also asked the regional election commissioner to submit a probe report within three days about the complaints of vandalism at a polling station in NA-242 Karachi Keamari-I-Sindh.

Earlier, several parties with previous parliamentary roles had expressed doubts about the reliability of the results due to delays, despite the election commission’s assurances of releasing the official results on time. Both the caretaker government and the top electoral body have denied the allegations of intentional delay in compiling and releasing the final results.