Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The ruling PTI emerged as the biggest winner in the Cantonment Board Elections (CBE), while the PML-N came in at a close second, according to unofficial results.
On Sunday, polling was carried out for election on 206 general seats in as many wards of 39 cantonment boards across the country. No major disruptions or incidents of violence were reported.
There are 219 wards in 42 cantonment boards all over the country, but no polling was scheduled in any of the nine wards of Kamra, Cherat and Murree Gallies cantonments, where either the candidates were elected unopposed or polling was postponed.
Besides, there were no elections in four other wards of various cantonment boards where candidates already returned unopposed.
According to the unofficial results, PTI secured 60 seats while the PML-N nabbed 57. Independent candidates claimed 43 seats.
On the other hand, the PPP managed only 14 seats, followed by MQM with 10. Jamat-i-Islami (JI) won five seats while Balochistan Awami Party got three seats.
A total of 1,513 candidates contested the polls to win general member seats in 206 wards of the cantonment boards. There were 878 candidates in 112 wards of 19 cantonments in Punjab; 418 in 53 wards of eight cantonments in Sindh; 170 candidates in 33 wards of nine cantonments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and 47 candidates in eight wards of three cantonments in Balochistan. The PTI fielded the highest number of 178 candidates in all the four provinces, followed by the PML-N and the PPP with 140 and 112 candidates, respectively.
The PML-N, however, did not nominate any candidate in Balochistan. Reacting to the ruling party’s victory, federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar said: “Cantonment elections once again show the PTI not only as the largest party but also the only national party.”
He said that the PTI had won either the highest or the second highest number of seats in every province. “Prime Minister Imran Khan is the only national leader,” he said. Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said that the competition was between PTI ticket holders and workers who contested the polls as independent candidates after being unable to get party tickets.
“The results of the cantonment polls show that the opposition has lost what little standing it had left and [it] has been badly defeated,” he said.
Meanwhile, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif called party leaders and congratulated them on their success in the cantonment polls. In Balochistan, independent candidates won the election in two wards while the PTI secured three seats. According to the details released by the Election Commission of Pakistan, elections were held in eight wards of the three cantonment boards in Quetta, Zhob and Loralai. Independent candidates Saifullah Khan and Mohammad Akhtar Qureshi won two of the seats in Quetta with 714 and 856 votes, respectively. PTI’s Bashir Ahmed, Manzoor Ali Nazari and Shafiq Bhatti won three seats in Quetta after securing 513, 542 and 460 votes, respectively.
The Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) won the election in two wards of Zhob and the ward in Loralai. According to unofficial results from Sindh, the ruling PTI nabbed the highest number of seats, 14, out of a total of 42. The PPP and the ANP were successful in three and two wards of cantonments in KP, respectively.
