PTI leads in NA as ECP issues results of general polls

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday released the complete preliminary results of July 25 general election, with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) at the top with 115 seats of the National Assembly, followed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 64 and Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) with 43 seats.

It took the ECP over 56 hours to present a complete picture of the 270 constituencies’ results. In all, as many as ten parties made their way to the National Assembly, whereas 13 independents also got elected to the legislature.

MMA got 12 seats, ANP, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaniyat, AML, JWP secured one seat each. MQM secured six seats, PML and BAP four seats each, BNP won three NA seats and GDA two seats.

Apart from emergence as the largest party in the National Assembly, obviously, PTI also secured top position by increasing its vote-bank of 7979954 in 2013 to 16858900. PML-N was polled 12896356 votes, whereas its vote-bank in previous general election was 14874104, showing decrease in its vote-bank.

Despite being its first election as a party, Tehreek Labaik Pakistan came fifth in terms of its vote-bank after the independents, leaving behind many parties. It secured a total of 2191685 votes.

Quite interestingly, Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians kept its vote-bank almost intact: it was 6911218 in 2013 and in the 2018 elections, it was recorded at 6900815 and reflected slight cut in number of its voters.

Unlike in 2013, independents were polled more votes this time i.e. 6018181, whereas in previous general election, they secured a total of 5880658 votes. MMA was revived before elections and its vote-bank stood at 2541514. The Grand Democratic Alliance’s vote-bank was recorded at 1257351, whereas Awami National Party received 808229 votes, which is almost double of what it pocketed in 2013 general election i.e. 453057 votes. Similarly, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) got 729767 votes while it had received 2456153 votes in previous general election. The reason behind this is mainly the division in its ranks and surfacing of Pak Sarzameen Party, which could not make its mark on the electoral landscape but undercut MQM vote.

Ex-MNA of PTI, Ayesha Gulalai, who formed her own party a few months back i.e. PTI-Gulalai, could receive only 4130 votes, whereas three parties got less than 100 votes.

The turn-out for the National Assembly was recorded at 51.7 per cent below expectations of the ECP and political parties, whereas over all turn-out for the provincial assemblies was also 51.7 per cent. However, for Punjab Assembly constituencies, it was the highest (55 per cent), followed by Sindh with 47.6 per cent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 45.5 per cent and Balochistan with 45.2 per cent.