ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s election regulator issued the list of contesting candidates for hundreds of national and provincial assembly constituencies on Sunday, with only two weeks left before the South Asian country heads to the polls.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had said last month that the last date for candidates to withdraw their nominations would be Jan.12 and that electoral symbols would be allotted to candidates the next day, Jan. 13.
However, the election regulator did not issue the final list of election candidates a week after Jan. 13. The ECP’s spokesperson, Syed Nadeem Haider, told local media last week that cases relating to the allocation of electoral symbols were being heard in court, which were leading to a delay in the watchdog issuing the final list of candidates and their electoral symbols.
The election oversight body uploaded the final list of contesting candidates on the social media platform X on Sunday.
Among the most eagerly watched constituencies on Feb. 8 when Pakistan heads to the polls is of NA-130 in the eastern city of Lahore, where former three-time prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif squares off against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) former provincial health minister, Dr. Yasmin Rashid.
Sharif is also contesting from NA-15 in the northwestern city of Mansehra, where he is set to face tough challenges from the PTI’s Gustasif Khan, who will now contest as an independent, and the Jamiat Ulama-e-Pakistan Fazl’s (JUI-F) Mufti Kifayatullah.
Former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari will contest from NA-207 constituency in Shaheed Benazirabad, previously Nawabshah in the southern Sindh province, where he will go up against the PTI’s Sardar Sher Mohammad Rind Baloch.
Zardari’s son and Pakistan’s former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will be contesting from three constituencies, two from Sindh and one from Lahore. In Lahore, Bhutto-Zardari will face the PML-N’s Ataullah Tarar and the PTI’s Chaudhry Shabbir Gujjar from NA-127.
Today, Monday, marks the deadline for Pakistan’s election staff to submit applications for postal ballots for the Feb. 8 polls, Pakistani state media reported last week.
“The Election Commission has started the process of providing postal ballot papers to eligible individuals for the general elections for both national and provincial assemblies,” Radio Pakistan said in a report on Sunday.
Pakistan is currently being run by a caretaker government under interim Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar that is meant to oversee the election on Feb. 8. Polls in the South Asian country were originally expected to be held in November but were delayed after the ECP had to redraw hundreds of constituencies across the country based on the results of the latest population census.
Preparations for the national polls have been marred by allegations of pre-poll rigging, mainly by former prime minister Imran Khan’s PTI, and security challenges, especially in Pakistan’s western provinces bordering Afghanistan.
