Voting Concludes; Counting Underway Across the Country

Following the conclusion of voting in the 13th National Parliamentary Election and the nationwide referendum, ballot counting has begun in many parts of the country. Ballot boxes have already been transported from polling stations to designated counting centers.

This year, ballots for both the parliamentary election and the referendum were placed in the same ballot boxes. The parliamentary ballots are printed in black and white, while the referendum ballots are pink. During the counting process, the ballots will first be separated by color and then counted individually.

Voting took place on Thursday (February 12) from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm across 299 constituencies, running continuously for approximately nine hours. Although there were reports of minor isolated incidents of violence in several areas, the overall voting process was completed.

According to the Election Commission, voter turnout reached 47.91 percent by 2:00 pm across 36,031 polling centers nationwide. The information was shared by Election Commission Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed at around 4:15 pm.

Earlier, the Commission reported that turnout stood at 32.88 percent by 12:00 pm across 32,789 polling centers.

Expressing satisfaction with the overall voting environment, the EC Secretary stated that no situation arose anywhere in the country that required suspension of voting. No polling station was suspended nationwide.