As per ARY News' unofficial results, PTI has emerged as the single largest party grabbing 119 seats, while rival PML-N trailed at 60 seats. Pakistan People's Party (PPP) stayed put at the third spot with 40 seats.
The Pakistani media hailed the outcome of the elections saying it showed that the country is "a peaceful democratic state" which defied all odds and paved the way for another successful democratic transition.
PTI has claimed victory despite serious questions being raised over the authenticity of the election process. Sensing victory, PTI supporters across the country erupted in jubilation.
According to report, analysts predicted tumultuous weeks ahead for Pakistan as a strong opposition to the election results was building up.
Voting began at 8 am (local time) on Wednesday, during which most of Pakistan's 106 million people came out to cast their votes. Polling took place in the country's 85,307 polling stations, out of which 17,007 were declared as "highly sensitive." The final results are expected to be out today. However, the results of the general elections were delayed due to a software error, the Election Commission of Pakistan on Thursday.
Pakistan election 2018 results
7:45 pm: Election Commission of Pakistan says that results will be announced within 24 hours.
6:00 pm: Imran Khan ends his address
5:30 pm: Imran Khan starts addressing Pakistan. While addressing the country, the PM to be said:
- "If India's leadership is willing then the both of us can solve the Kashmir issue through dialogue. It will be good for the subcontinent also. You take one step, we will take two."
- "Trade relations can be established between Pakistan and 'Hindustan'. Core issue between both the countries is 'Kashmir'. We need to resolve this issue. Blame game should end."
- "Indian media has portrayed me as if I am some villain of a Bollywood movie, but let me tell you I am that Pakistani who is more acquainted to a large part of India than anybody else, because of cricket. "
- Imran Khan said that he would not be residing in the PM House and will convert the governor houses into hotels.
- "We want to make such institutions that will fix the governance system of our country. Otherwise we will never be able to win our own challenges; the economy being the biggest."
- "I have faced the maximum personal attacks in the last 3 years. No other leader has faced more than me."
- Our policies will be aimed at improving lives of labourers, farmers and healthcare of children, women: Imran Khan
- "I entered politics to make Pakistan what Md Ali Jinnah had dreamed of."
5:30 pm: Imran Khan addresses Pakistan in a press conference
4:36 pm: Wasim Akram pays a visit to Bani Gala- Imran Khan's residence
4:20 pm: Even before the official announcement of results, the Islamabad administration has already begun providing state protocol to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan. According to Samaa TV, 30 policemen have been deployed outside Imran's Bani Gala residence in Islamabad, in place of his private guards.
Dawn also reported the same.
2: 50 pm: ECP now receiving results through fax as its RTS malfunctions, reported Dawn.
2: 40 pm: "I don't see any change because as far as India is concerned, the important matters like export of terrorism by them, are not going to change. Military used to decide this policy & they'll do it now as well," said, Union Minister RK Singh
2: 30 pm: Union Minister RK Singh on Imran Khan's party PTI leading in Pakistan General Elections trends said, "Military is supporting him from the start, it's not new. Imran Khan has always been a military candidate. It's not us, but people of Pakistan who are saying so."
2: 14 pm: Imran Khan's ex-wife Jemima Goldsmith congratulated Imran Khan on Twitter.
2: 05 pm: Pakistan election 2018 - WATCH FULL COVERAGE from 11 pm to 12 noon
1: 30 pm: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has won the NA-95 Mianwali constituency in Punjab, defeating Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Abdullah Khan by nearly 80,000 votes, ARY News reported citing unofficial results. Imran won 1,27,530 votes in the PML-N stronghold, while Abdullah settled in at less than 50,000 votes. Imran is also leading in the NA-53 Islamabad seat and has got 21,955 votes, way ahead of former Pakistan Prime Minister and PML-N's Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who has obtained 9,847 votes so far.
1: 05 pm: With army-backed Imran Khan tipped to be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, on Thursday, expressed apprehension that Pakistan may now carry out a war against India. Speaking to ANI, Swamy said, "Let us (India) prepare for the possibility that Pakistan may carry out war by miscalculation. We should be ready to finish Pakistan and break it into four and look for that opportunity."
12: 45 pm: Pakistan Stock Exchange bullish as PTI leads in polls - The stock market in Pakistan witnessed a bullish trend on Thursday morning as early election results tipped Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for victory. The Pakistan Stock Exchange saw a significant increase in activity during early trading, a day after the country voted for its second consecutive democratic transfer of power, as the benchmark KSE-100 index gained 767 points to reach 42,106 points, Geo News reported.
12: 19 pm: Speaking on the expected win of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan in the recently-concluded 2018 general elections, Congress leader and former Foreign Minister Shashi Tharoor said that the Indo-Pak relations would not witness turbulent times with the former's victory.
Talking to ANI, Tharoor said, "We have seen two faces of Imran, one as a hardliner for the electorate and other as liberal which we saw in London and New Delhi. So, it cannot necessarily be turbulent weather for Indo-Pak relations."
11: 53 am: Imran Khan inched closer to power today after a general election that has been marred by long delays in ballot counting and claims of rigging by opponents. With nearly half the votes counted from Wednesday's election, Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Movement for Justice, was in a commanding lead in the nuclear-armed, Muslim nation.
11: 28 am: According to the report by The Guardian, Pakistan will have to wait until Thursday evening for official results to be announced, ECP officials have said. It is 24 hours after polls closed on Wednesday evening.
11: 10 am: According to Dawn, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) have observed that polling staff appeared biased in some places towards one political party. The human rights body noted that voters who received slips from another party's stall were turned away on flimsy grounds. The commission received complaints that women were not allowed to vote in several areas.
10: 53 am: Imran Khan's PTI leads in 121 seats; WATCH FULL COVERAGE from 8 am to 9 am
10: 40 am: Only 34% votes were counted by midnight, reported the Dawn. Meanwhile, the parties cry foul over the counting process and alleged rigging.
10: 30 am: As per the report by the Dawn, the first session of the Pakistan Stock Exchange after the elections 2018 is seeing tremendous activity, with the bourse's benchmark 100 index having jumped more than 600 points within the first half an hour.
10: 19 am: After more than 15 hours of polling that ended on Wednesday, Pakistan is still awaiting final election results from the ECP.
10: 08 am: As per latest unofficial trends on Geo news, PTI’s Imran Khan wins NA-53 Islamabad 2 with 92,891 votes.
9: 46 am: In a biggest setback for former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, he lost both seats from his home constituency NA-57 (Rawalpindi-I) and NA-53 (Islamabad II).
9: 34 am: Hundreds of transgenders in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday missed the opportunity of casting their vote in the general election as they were wrongly identified as "male" in the national identity cards.
9: 23 am: Watch- Imran Khan: Pakistan's only world cup winning captain becomes the strongest contender for PM post
9: 15 am: LATEST RESULT UPDATE - Imran Khan's PTI leads in 121 seats, PML-N in 58, PPP in 34
8: 59 am: Meanwhile, the polling staff complain of scanty arrangements. As per the report the Dawn, logistically there were poor arrangements at various polling stations in Lahore. Most of the officials were found complaining against the ECP and the officials of civil administration. “We have no break and no support staff. We all have been thirsty since morning, but no one provided us with water. Can anyone explain why has this happened to us?” protested an assistant presiding officer.
8: 52 am:
Pakistan election 2018: How are votes counted in Pakistan?
• ECP secretary Babar Yaqoob said on Thursday morning informed that the Result Transmission Service failed after results of 25,000 out of 85,000 polling stations were uploaded. ECP is facing questions over the delay in declaring results. According to Dawn, this is how votes are counted:
• Presiding officers and assistants in the polling booth manually count the votes that are dropped into ballot boxes
• Officers then transfer these boxes into sealed bags provided by the ECP
• The bags are then handed over to the Returning Officer (RO) who, in turn, hands it over to the District Returning Officer (DRO)
• The DRO then submits the bags to the ECP's offices or storage houses
• Green bags are for NA votes, white for Provincial Assembly votes and blue for unverified votes
• The presiding officer fills Form 45 and Form 46 for every NA and PA seat. These forms contain information about the candidate and how many votes they received. This data can be shared with polling agents and candidates present at stations.
• The Presiding Officer takes a screenshot of both the forms and uploads them to the Results Transmission System, which is an Android app enabling election officers to send results to the ECP in real time.
8: 48 am: Pakistan has witnessed violence across the country in the run up to the parliamentary and provincial assembly elections held on Wednesday. The elections mark only the second time that one civilian government has handed power to another after serving a full term in office.
8: 43 am: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday meanwhile condemned the killing of dozens of people near a polling station in Pakistan's western Quetta city in a suicide attack. The suicide bombing killed more than 31 people and injured many. It was claimed by the terror group Islamic State.
8: 37 am: Following technical glitches in the Result Transmission System which led to delay in announcement of results today. As per the report, an ECP source said that system has not yet recovered, and it will take about three to four hours more to get all the results.
8: 35 am: According to unofficial results as per Pakistan Today, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is leading in NA-246 Karachi (Lyari) against PTI’s Abdul Shakur.
Five developments since last night-
• PML-N chief Shahbaz Sharif held a press conference to raise questions about the counting process
• Alleging "manifest and massive irregularities", Sharif said the PML-N rejects the results
• In his tweet, Sharif wrote, "The mandate of the millions of people who came out to vote has been humiliated. Our democratic process has been pushed back by decades," he tweets
• Sharif's allegations were backed by Zardari from the PPP who tweeted, "My candidates complaining polling agents have been thrown out of polling stations across the country. Inexcusable & outrageous"
• The Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Raza Khan denied allegations of rigging
• Khan said that the election has been 100% fair and transparent
• There are reports that technical glitches with the EC's Results Transmission System (RTS) could delay results
• Imran Khan will address the nation at 2 pm on Thursday
8: 28 am: While the majority of Pakistan saw voters lining up to cast their vote, parts of Karachi and urban Sindh witnessed silence in polling booths, as members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement successfully boycotted the elections, as per the report by ANI. The people of Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkar, Mirpurkhas and other urban cities of Sindh province successfully boycotted the elections, following the appeal made by MQMfounder Altaf Hussain.
8: 35 am: Imran Khan is inching towards becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan. His party has come out to be the biggest party in the neighbouring country of India. Here, watch to know WHO IS IMRAN KHAN.
8: 31 am: According to the Dawn, the election day was relatively peaceful considering the series of terrorist attacks and threats in the lead-up. The election day attack outside a polling station in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province in the southwest, killed at least 31 people and injured about 40 others.
8: 27 am: Sensing victory on Wednesday, PTI supporters erupted in jubilation. The party supporters were already celebrating in cities across the country, including Lahore, Islamabad, Multan and Rawalpindi, with fireworks, dancing and reports of celebratory gunshots.
8: 23 am: Analysts predicted tumultuous weeks ahead for Pakistan as a strong opposition to the election results was building up.
8: 20 am: After ten hours of the tense atmosphere on Wednesday, the voting process concluded in Pakistan marred by the tragic events of a suicide blast that claimed 31 lives and another poll-related violence claiming four lives.
8: 17 am: PTI chief Imran Khan will address the Pakistanis today at 2:30 pm (IST). According to the Dawn, the address is in respect to the "celebration and recognition of the massive support received from the people of Pakistan in the 2018 Elections which was a contest between the forces of good and evil".
8: 11 am: As of now, the results of 170/172 seats are out. As per the unofficial results, PTI maintains a clear lead.
8: 06 am: A party can form the government in Pakistan if it manages to clinch 172 seats out of the total 342. A single party will need at least 137 of the 272 directly-elected seats to be able to form the government on its own.
7: 58 am: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is leading in 58 seats, while Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has taken lead in 33 out of a total of 272 seats.
7: 50 am: The Election Commission of Pakistan on Thursday said that results of the general elections were delayed due to a software error. The ECP was also accused of conducting rigged elections due to non-provision of Form 45, a sheet containing the final vote tally at each polling station.
7: 45 am: The early hours of Thursday in Pakistan were dominated by massive delays and allegations of rigging. The official election results were still not announced even 12 hours after polling ended.
Here was what the (unofficial) initial trends on Wednesday suggested about the results:
- As per the latest unofficial trends on ARY news, PTI is leading on 114 seats and PMLN on 63 seats
- PML-N says Pakistan election 'blatantly' rigged, EC rejects rigging allegations
- ARY News, as per unofficial data, says that PTI leading in 103 seats, PML-N in 52, PPP in 32
- NA-54 (Islamabad): PTI in the lead (Asad Umar 9091 votes, Anjum Aqeel Khan 4145 votes)
- PTI candidate Ghulam Sarwar Khan leads leading against former Pakistan Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in NA-63 (Rawalpindi).
- PTI leading in 93 seats, PML-N ahead on 52, PPP surges ahead on 30
- PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari trailing in NA-8 Malakand constituency. PTI's Junaid Akbar is leading.
- Senior PTI leader Asad Umar leading in NA-54 (Islamabad) against PML-N's Anjum Akeel
- Former Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khakan Abbasi is also trailing from Islamabad constituency against PTI chief Imran Khan.
- PTI leading in 90 seats, PML-N ahead on 52, PPP surges ahead on 30: ARY News cites unofficial figures
- PTI chief Imran Khan leading in all five seats: ARY News
- PTI leading in 85 seats, PML-N ahead on 52, PPP surges ahead on 25: ARY News cites unofficial figures
- PTI chief Imran Khan leading with 762 votes with 182 votes for PML-N’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in NA-53 Islamabad-II, reports Samaa TV.
- PTI is leading in 12 seats and PML-N in five seats out of 33, as per the reports of Samaa TV
- Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader and former cricketer Imran Khan takes lead in MIanwalai after trailing for a short while.