Pakistan goes to elections today amid challenges of violence, polarization

Islamabad: The nation all set to elect new government through general elections on Thursday (today).

The polling will begin at 8:00 am in the morning and continue till 5:00 pm in the evening. It is public holiday today so the people could exercise their right without any hindrance.

The voters are required to bring their original Computerized National Identity Cards in order to cast the vote. Expired CNIC is also acceptable.

The Voters are also advised to get their vote details before the polling day by sending their CNIC number on 8300 through SMS.

The elections will be held on 265 seats of National Assembly and five hundred and ninety seats of four provincial assemblies.

A total of 5121 candidates are in the race for the National Assembly seats. These include 4807 male, 312 female and two transgender.

For the four provincial assemblies, 12695 candidates are in the field including 12123 male, 570 women and two transgender.

There are a total of 128,585,760 registered voters in the country.

Punjab has the most number of 73, 207,896 registered voters followed by Sindh with 26,994,769, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 21,928,119, Balochistan with 5,371,947 and Federal Capital Islamabad 1,083,029.

Ninety thousand seven hundred and seventy seven polling stations have been established nationwide. Of these, forty four thousand polling stations have been declared normal, twenty nine thousand nine hundred and eighty five sensitive, and sixteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty six highly sensitive.

About six hundred and fifty thousand security personnel have been deployed on the ground to ensure the security of the voters. These include the personnel of police, civil armed forces and the armed forces. Under a three tiered system, the personnel of the armed forces will perform duties outside the polling stations.

Meanwhile, Election Commission has completed all arrangements for the polling. It has completed the delivery of around 260 million ballot papers.

In the federal capital, police personnel have reached the polling stations and they will stay there overnight.

Along with 6500 personnel of Islamabad Police, 1000 FC, 1500 Rangers and Pakistan Army jawans will perform the duties. A central control room for elections has been set up in Safe City.