Pak Election Body Accepts 22,711 Candidate Nominations For Upcoming Polls

The nominations of 22,711 candidates for the February 8 polls to Pakistan's National Assembly and four of its provincial assemblies have been accepted by the election commission after preliminary review, it emerged on Monday.

According to the data uploaded on the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) website, 7,473 candidates, including 7,028 male and 445 female candidates, submitted their nominations for the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.

The Returning Officers (ROs) accepted nominations of 6,449 candidates including 6,094 male and 355 female candidates, and rejected the documents of 1,024 candidates, including 934 men and 90 women.

The data on rejected candidates was not provided in detail but jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has claimed that a vast majority of rejections were against its nominated candidates.

Similarly, the ROs approved 16,262 nomination papers for the four provincial assemblies, out of the documents submitted by 18,478 candidates, including 17,670 males and 808 females.

Nomination papers of 2,216 candidates, including 2,081 men and 135 women, failed to get the approval of ROs for provincial assemblies.

Overall, the 22,711 nomination papers for NA and provincial assemblies general seats have been approved, the Election Commission of Pakistan said, adding that 21,684 of them are men and 1,027 women.

A total of 25,951 papers were submitted, while nomination papers of 3,240 candidates, including 3,015 male candidates and 225 females, were rejected.

The Election Commission of Pakistan provided that data of accepted candidates after a five-day scrutiny stage which ended on December 30.

The rejected candidates can file appeals by January 3 against the decisions of the ROs in the appellate bench of the respective high courts.

The appeals will be decided upon by the Election Commission of Pakistan's Appellate Tribunal by January 10, followed by subsequent publication of the revised list of candidates on January 11.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan is among the candidates whose papers have been rejected.

However, leading papers of the leading candidates of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), including Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Shehbaz Sharif, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari have been accepted.

Affected parties can also challenge accepted nominations and in one such case the acceptance of PML-N chief Sharif's nomination papers from Lahore's constituency NA-130 for the upcoming February 8.

Advocate Ishtiaq Ahmed Samsialvi, who also goes by Ishtiaq Chaudhry, the chief organiser of Pakistan Awami Mahaz's (PAM) lawyers' wing, filed an appeal before the Lahore High Court's appellate tribunal under Section 63 (appeal against scrutiny order) of the Elections Act 2017.

He is also a candidate for NA-130 and challenged the rejection of his nomination papers as well.

In his petition, the Pakistan Awami Mahaz leader urged the tribunal to strike down the acceptance of Nawaz's papers as "illegal and unlawful" and that the papers be rejected due to his 2017 disqualification in the Panama Papers case, which the Supreme Court ruled was for The elections will be held on February 8 and the preparation has been going as per the schedule. The Pakistan army also pledged its support for ensuring peace on the day of elections.

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