KARACHI: Pakistan goes to the polls on Wednesday, July 25, as the nation, its politicians and local and foreign observers anticipate with bated breath one of the most-watched elections in the country’s history.
Political parties and their candidates made intense, last-minute efforts to garner ever greater public support for the elections, as the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) deadline for electioneering expired midnight on Tuesday.
Two main contenders have emerged among the dozens of political parties in the election fray: the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which aims to win a second term despite the jailing of its founder, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, for corruption.
“The time has come for you to make this movement a success, and announce such a historic verdict which may sweep all those verdicts away that have made Pakistan a graveyard of justice,” Nawaz urged the masses to vote for PML-N on July 25, in an audio message from Adiala jail on Monday, where he is serving his sentence.
PML-N president and Nawaz’s younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, in his address to a public gathering in Dera Ghazi Khan on Monday, claimed the PML-N was winning the elections despite all the injustices.
PTI chairman Imran Khan, who addressed the public in different parts of Lahore Monday night, lashed out at the opposing PML-N saying the former Punjab government carried out development “only in advertisements”.
The cricketer-turned-politician urged the nation to change its fate come Wednesday. “We all have to go out on July 25 to vote for the PTI,” he said.
