PESHAWAR: The counting of votes has been started after polling for the second phase of the local bodies elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ended at 5 pm on Thursday.
In the second and last phase of the elections, people in 18 remaining districts of the province cast their vote, amid tight security, to elect their representatives for local governments.
A total of 28,020 candidates are in the run for different categories in the polls being held in Abbottabad, Mansehra, Battagram, Torghar, Upper and Lower Kohistan, Kolai-Palas, Swat, Malakand, Shangla, Lower and Upper Dir, Upper and Lower Chitral, Kurram, Orakzai, and North and South Waziristan districts.
The LG elections are being held for the first time in the erstwhile tribal districts of Kurram, Orakzai, North and South Waziristan.
More security has been provided to the polling stations that have been declared sensitive and most sensitive.
According to the ECP, polling is being carried out in 65 tehsils of 18 districts, where a total of 80, 57,474 registered voters had to exercise their right to vote, out of whom 44,89,771 voters are male while 35,67,703 are female.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has declared 1,646 polling stations “most sensitive”, 2,326 “sensitive” and 2,069 normal out of the 6,176 polling stations. Adequate security arrangements have been made for the sensitive and most sensitive polling stations across the province
A total of 651 candidates contest for city mayor and tehsil chairman seats, 12,980 for general and neighborhood councils, 2,668 for women seats, 6,451 for labor, 5,213 candidates for Kisan and youth seats, and 57 for religious minorities’ seats.
The election body has informed that a total of 1,318 candidates have been elected unopposed in 65 tehsils.
The first phase of local government elections in KP was held in December, where the ruling PTI had suffered a major setback as the opposition parties, particularly JUI-F, won a clean victory.
