The first phase of the general elections concluded on Sunday, which was the last day of filing nomination papers by the candidates to contest on the 266 general and 70 reserved seats of the National Assembly and more than 600 seats in all the four provincial assembly.
The process of filing of nominations was supposed to complete on Friday, but the Election Commission of Pakistan extended the three-day time period to five days on the request of the various political parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Saturday was the fourth day and thousands more papers were filed by the candidates from all the political parties, including Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and others.
From Monday (today), the ECP would kick-start the next phase of the elections with the scrutiny of the submitted papers. The scrutiny process is slated to continue till December 30, according to the revised election schedule. In the third phase, appeals against the acceptance or rejection of the nomination papers can be submitted until January 3, 2024 with decisions expected by the 10th of January. Then the ECP will release the updated list of candidates on the 11th of January.
The candidates will have January 12 to withdraw their nomination papers. After which date, the ECP will allocate the electoral symbols to the candidate on January 13. The voting in the general elections will take place February 8. Meanwhile, the ECP has given more time to foreign observers, who want to monitor the general elections, to submit their applications from December 31 to January 20, an ECP official said. He said that the ECP had printed over 200,000 accreditation cards for the election coverage.
The election-24 is being held on the basis of newly-demarcated constituencies after the digital census. There are several cases pending in the courts over the new delimitation. The ECP said on Saturday it would decide about the objection to the delimitation after compiling the election results.
In another development, the ECP on Sunday released a fresh list of registered political parties in the country. According to the fresh list, the number of registered political parties in Pakistan has reached 175. The commission removed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan’s name from the party heads. The list mentioned Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) a leaderless political party. Pervez Khattak-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Parliamentarians has been included in the list.
