The nation awaits the results over hours after polling concluded at 5 p.m. in Thursday’s general elections. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) could not disclose any reasons for the delay, prompting suspicions among the competing parties.
Broadcasts on state and private channels and local media began to announce preliminary results, yet the process has been notably slow. Specifically, results from certain districts in Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are outstanding.
In interior Sindh, some results are trickling in, but in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and the provincial capital, the pace of results is particularly sluggish.
Punjab, the country’s largest province, is also experiencing slow receipt of results, with similar delays reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has voiced its concerns over these delays.
Reflecting on the 2018 election, the initial use of the Result Transmission System (RTS) encountered a halt overnight, disrupting the result transmission process.
Political entities, including the PPP and PML-N, raised their concerns following the delayed results into the next day.
The ECP introduced a new Election Management System (EMS) to streamline result organization. Presiding officers were directed to transmit results via mobile. However, a mobile network shutdown on February 8 for security purposes led to further delays in result announcements.
ECP officials previously told the media that results could be sent through the internet in addition to mobile transmission, or presiding officers might collect and deliver them to the returning officers manually.
