LAHORE (Web Desk) – The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz outshone other major political groups in the local government elections to the cantonment boards, by winning 68 out of a total of 199 seats, according to unofficial results.
The second position was notched by the independent candidates with 55 seats, followed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) that could garner 42 seats and emerged as the second largest political party in the LB elections.
Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) bagged 19 seats, followed by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) with seven seats and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) with six.
It should be mentioned here that N-League swept elections in Rawalpindi Cantonment by winning all ten seats.
Polling in 42 of the 43 cantonments began at nine in the morning and concluded at 5:00 pm. The only cantonment board where the electoral exercise was not conducted on Saturday was Balochistan’s Omara cantonment.
Over 1,800,000 voters were expected to exercise their franchise right, albeit, after a 17-year-long interval.
Surprisingly, the independents turned out to be formidable competitors for the candidates backed by political groups on 55 seats.
Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf could not live up to the hype and could only bag 42 seats. Muttahida Qaumi Movement clinched 19, while Pakistan People’s Party somewhat managed to secure seven seats.
Jamaat-e-Islami emerged victorious in six wards, followed by Awami National Party’s two.
As per unofficial reports, PML-N won 6 seats in Lahore cantonment board and 9 in Walton cantonment, while the remaining four and one, respectively, were secured by PTI.
At least 14 candidates were elected unopposed: 9 independents, two each from PTI and MQM, and one from PML-N.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, about 1,151 candidates were in the run. Of them, 541 were from political parties and 610 independents.
In all 1,225 polling stations were set up, and 310 of these were declared sensitive and 130 highly sensitive.
Only nine political parties fielded more than five candidates. The only parties to have fielded candidates in all the four provinces were PML-N, PTI and PPP.
The PTI had fielded 137 candidates — 93 in Punjab, 22 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 18 in Sindh and four in Balochistan. The PML-N has 128 candidates – 99 in Punjab, 13 in KP, 12 in Sindh and four in Balochistan.
The PPP had fielded 89 candidates — 58 in Punjab, 22 in Sindh, eight in KP and one in Balochistan. The number of candidates fielded by Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) is 74 — 41 in Punjab, 28 in Sindh and seven in KP.
Twenty-seven candidates have contested on Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) tickets — 23 in Punjab, three in Sindh and one in KP. The MQM had fielded 27 candidates, all in Sindh. The Awami National Party has contested on 13 seats in KP and Awami Muslim League fought for seven seats in Punjab.
The Karachi’s Cantonment Board has the most wards i.e. 32 whereas Lahore Cantt has 20. Rawalpindi, Chaklala, Wah Cantt, Sargodha and Hyderabad have ten wards each while Sialkot, Peshawar, Okara, Quetta and Abbottabad Cantts have five wards each.
The cantonments in Nowshera has four wards, Kohat, Rasalpur and Bahawalpur have three wards each while the remaining two cantonments have two wards each.
