General Elections 2018 set to take place on Wednesday
The election campaign by political parties concluded across the country at midnight yesterday.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has completed all the preparations for the General Elections 2018 scheduled to take place in the country on Wednesday.
The polling will begin at 8am and end at 6pm tomorrow.
The election campaign by political parties concluded across the country at midnight yesterday while those found violating the law would be imprisoned for two years or fined Rs100,000.
Winding up their campaigns all political parties and independent candidates have made last ditch efforts through public gatherings, corner meetings and door to door campaigns to garner maximum public support.
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Number of candidates for NA, provincial seats
Over 12,570 candidates are vying for National Assembly and provincial assemblies. Against the National Assembly seats, as many as 3,675 candidates are in the electoral race whereas 8,895 for the provincial legislatures.
From Sindh, 872 are contesting for the National Assembly seats and 2,382 for the provincial assembly.
Know More: Dunya Election Cell Survey 2018
For Balochistan’s National Assembly seats, there are a total of 303 candidates and 1,007 for its provincial assembly seats, including 287 general seats of National Assembly and 943 seats of the Provincial Assembly.
In Islamabad, seventy six candidates are in the race for three seats of National Assembly.
Voters and polling stations
According to the electoral rolls, 105.96 million voters are eligible to cast the vote. In all, 85,307 polling stations and 2,41,132 polling booths have been set up across the country.
Over 20,000 polling stations have been declared sensitive whereas CCTV cameras have been installed inside and outside 70 of them.
High security
Pakistan Army has completed deployment of troops across the country in respective areas of responsibility to provide mandated assistance to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for holding free, fair and transparent Elections 2018.
According to Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the troops would coordinate with other law enforcement agencies and local administration for ensuring safe and secure environment on the polling day.
As many as 450,000 policemen and 3,00,000 army troops have been deployed for the polling day.
ECP issues directives
ECP has issued special directives to the polling staff according to which senior presiding officers will serve the same duty as that of assistant presiding officer (APO). He will also be the acting presiding officer and will sign form 45 and 46.
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In case of any error, both presiding and senior officer will be held accountable.
The senior officers will keep notice whether the vote has been cast in ballot box or not. It will be better that the APO keep the CNIC of voters with himself until the vote casting procedure completes.
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The duties assigned to APO includes entering CNIC and vote number, registering gender, name electoral area, taking voter’s thumbprint, stamping counter file in front and signature.
It will be public holiday on the polling day on Wednesday.
