Nawaz Sharif or Imran Khan? Pakistan stock index KSE100 plunges 1,700 pts as vote count begins

Pakistan's benchmark stock index KSE-100 took a beating on Friday afternoon amid political uncertainty, as the vote counting in the country was underway following Thursday's country-wide polls. The neighbouring country went for polls on Thursday and a dozen of parties including Nawaz Sharif's PML(N), Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's PPP and Fazal-Ur-Rehman's JUI were in race to form the next government there. That said, Khan's PTI, whose candidates are running as independents, former three-time premier Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Bilawal Zardari Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) were seen as key contestants.

Amid uncertainty, the KSE-100 index plunged over 1,700 points intraday and was last traded at 63,045, down 1,151 points or 1.79 per cent. The 100-consituent index fell 1,720.27 points, or 2.68 per cent, to stand at 62,423.60 points at one point in time.

The polling in Pakistan kicked off at 8.00 am and concluded at 5:00 pm yesterday.  A country-wide public holiday was declared to enable more than 12 crore voters to cast their ballots. As per the initial tally by Pakistan's Election Commission, the results for 53 seats have been declared, with IND getting 18 seats, PML-N 17 seats, PPP 15 seats and PML, BNP and MQM-P getting one seat each, India Today reported

"Because of all the talk before elections the market is expecting a PML N government but the early results show people have different ideas," Zafar Paracha, the head of the Pakistan Forex Association, reported by PTI as saying

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