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Pakistan elections: Everything you need to know as the Islamic Democracy goes to polls

Islamabad | It’s only for the second time in its seven-decade turbulent history that Pakistan will see a transfer of power from one civilian government to another when it goes to polls on Wednesday.

The election campaign closed on Monday night, with all the three major parties in the fray — Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Bilawal Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — accusing each other of misconduct.

Important things to know about the Pakistan’s General elections:

  • Out of the 342 seats National assembly, the people of Pakistan will vote for 272 seats. 60 seats are reserved for women while 10 seats are reserved for the religious minorities.
  • Around 3,459 candidates are contesting for the National assembly while 8,396 candidates are running for 577 general seats of the four provincial assemblies of Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
  • 105.96 million voters will cast their votes today which consist 59.22 million Male voters and 46.73 million female voters. 19.72 million Pakistani youth will cast their votes for the first time in 2018 general elections.
  • The state of Punjab is the biggest state in the provincial assemblies with 183 seats. The assembly of Sindh has 75 seats while the assemblies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan has 43 and 17 seats respectively.
  • Liaquat Ali Khan and Yousaf Raza Gilani are the longest serving Prime Minister with a tenure of 50months and 2 days.
  • 371,388 troops have been deployed in the country for 85,000 polling stations to ensure security on polling day.
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