Pakistan elections 2024: Counting underway, internet services snapped in Karachi; early results shortly

Counting of votes in Pakistan is underway and early results will start coming in shortly. Earlier today, polling was held across Pakistan to elect the new prime minister. Pakistan's Dawn reported that at least ten parties were in the fray, but the main contest is likely to be between Shehbaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Bilawal Bhutto-led Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). 

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Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidates are contesting the polls independently after the country's Supreme Court upheld the decision of the election commission to deprive his party of its iconic election symbol cricket 'bat'. With Imran Khan in jail, Nawaz Sharif's PML-N is likely to emerge as the single largest party in Pakistan. 

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Pakistan's authorities had snapped internet services across the country when the poll was underway. However, later the Interior Ministry said mobile phone services had been partially restored in parts of the country. The internet services are yet to be restored in Malir and Karachi.  

Haroon Shinwari, a senior official of the Election Commission of Pakistan, said that the results will start pouring in from urban areas after 10 pm (17:00 GMT). But most of the results would be available by the morning. 

Pakistan's National Assembly has 342 seats but members are elected directly for only 266 seats - 70 are elected on reserved seats for women and religious minorities from all over the country and six on reserved seats for former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Of 266 seats, the highest 141 seats are in Punjab, 61 in Sindh, 45 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 16 in Baluchistan, and three are in the Islamabad Capital Territory.