EC announces final results of second phase of local polls

* 48.75 percent voter turnout in 2nd phase

By Mohammad Kamran

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission on Saturday declared the final results of the second phase of local council elections held in 54 districts of the country, showing an overall turnout of 48.75 percent.

With the completion of the second phase, the direct election process in 108 districts has ended and now district and town nazims and deputy nazims would be elected indirectly in the third and last phase on September 29 throughout the country.

The voter turnout for the first phase was 46.9 percent and with the addition of 48.75 percent turnout in the second phase of elections held in 2,974 union councils in all four provinces, the average voter turnout of the entire election comes to 47.82 percent.

Polling in two of the total of 110 districts of the country was delayed. Polling in Ghotki district would be held after fresh delimitation of constituencies while polling in Qila Abdullah will be held today (Sunday).

EC Secretary Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad said that the results would be published in the official gazette on August 30, adding that 222,769 candidates in 108 districts contested the elections in both phases.

He said that all union council candidates in Dera Bugti district were elected unopposed. He added that the EC had engaged 900,000 election staff to man 62,447 polling stations in both phases.

Dilshad told Daily Times that printing the results was a huge project and this was the reason the publishing of the official gazette had been delayed. “The printing company first scans each and every result and then publishes it. This process takes time. Moreover, there are some 80,000 results which will be announced. So it will definitely take time,” he said.

He said that re-polling had been ordered at polling stations in a few union councils and the results would be included in the official gazette subsequently.

Dilshad said the voter turnout in the first phase of elections was 53.88 percent in Punjab, 36.6 percent in Sindh, 41.93 percent in the NWFP, and 46.97 percent in Balochistan.

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