Pakistan's enters campaign silence before polling day

ISLAMABAD: As election campaigns came to a close on Monday midnight, leadership of all political parties urged voters in their public rallies to come out in large number on July 25 to vote for their favorite candidates and party as this will help to strengthen democracy in Pakistan.
On the last day of canvassing, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan addressed four rallies in Lahore and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shahbaz Sharif concluded his party’s election campaign by addressing a public gathering in Dera Ghazi Khan, a district in South Punjab.
All recent polls and surveys have predicted a tough competition at national level between the PTI and PML-N, though leadership of both these parties have predicted their victory in the elections during their recent addresses to public gatherings.
The PTI chairman addressed 61 public gatherings, followed by Pakistan People’s Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto with 44 and Shahbaz Sharif with 30 during the election campaign. None of them, however, visited Balochistan for the canvassing owing to security concerns.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), a total of 3,674 candidates will contest 272 general seats of the National Assembly, while 8,400 are running for 577 general seats of the four provincial assemblies.
The elections on one National Assembly seat and two provincial assembly seats have been postponed because of the death of candidates in suicide attacks, while the election on another National Assembly seat is postponed owing to the conviction of a candidate by the court.
Pakistan’s National Assembly is a democratically elected body comprising a total of 342 members, of which 272 are directly elected, 60 seats are reserved for women and 10 for religious minorities.
A total of 105.6 million registered voters will exercise their right to vote on Wednesday in all four provinces of the country. The ECP has set up 85,307 polling stations across the country including 23,424 male, 21,707 female, 40,133 combined and 43 improvised ones to ensure better turnout on the polling day.
For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the ECP has got the power to declare polling at one or more polling stations, or election in the whole constituency void, if women voters’ turnout is less than 10 percent of the total votes polled in a constituency.
To deal with any untoward incident and ensure free and fair elections, the Pakistan army has deployed 371,000 troops across the country. Two army personnel each will be deployed inside and outside all the polling stations.
In a statement on Monday, Inter Services Public Relations -– the armed forces’ publicity wing -– said the process of deployment of the troops has been completed. It said coordination with other law enforcement agencies and local administration is in hand for ensuring a safe and secure environment during the polls.
Professor Tahir Malik, political analyst and academic, said that traditional enthusiasm and passion for the election campaign was marred by deteriorating law and order in the country as more than 200 innocents, including three election candidates, had been killed in separate suicide attacks.
“The ball is now in the court of the people. They must come out in large numbers to elect honest and truthful candidates,” he told Arab News.
Malik said Pakistan can witness true democracy only if all the institutions work in their predefined constitutional limits and “the public is allowed to elect their candidates through ballot without any fear.”