Islamabad: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has gained top position in local government elections in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province ruled by it, according to unofficial results available on Sunday.
Cricket hero-turned-politician Imran Khan’s PTI secured the largest number of seats in district and town councils across the province in the elections held Saturday. The Awami National Party (ANP) was the runner up.
But the polls were marred by mismanagement and incidents of violence, in which 10 people were reportedly killed and dozens injured.
Police said six people were killed in Shabqadar area of Charsadda district in a clash between supporters of rival candidates. Two persons died in Dera Ismail Khan and one each in Kohat and Pabbi area of District Nowshera in poll-related violence.
Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), a local non-governmental organisation, said voter turnout was more that of the 2013 general elections.
In a report on Sunday, the electoral watchdog said the provincial capital, Peshawar, witnessed more chaos than any other part of the province and voting was repeatedly stopped because of disruptions.
FAFEN said Bannu was the second most affected area where political hostility marred the process of ballot casting.
The NGO said the Election Commission of Pakistan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government were responsible for irregularities and electoral maladministration.
Women were stopped from using their right of franchise at a string of polling stations across the province, the poll watchdog said, noting that election staff showed lack of sufficient training.
In a post-poll development, ANP General-Secretary and former provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain was arrested by police on Sunday in a case related to the murder of a PTI worker.
Hussain was presented before a judicial magistrate in Nowshera who remanded him to police custody for a day for investigations, reports said.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed concern over the arrest of the ANP leader and sought a report from the top police authorities.
In a statement, the premier said high profile personalities belonging to political organisations should be treated with dignity and respect.
PTI was voted into power in the northwestern province in the 2013 general elections, which faces allegations that it had been rigged.
A three-member judicial commission headed by the country’s chief justice, whom the government had set up under an agreement with PTI, is currently probing the allegations of 2013 poll rigging.
Imran Khan has often asserted that 2015 would be election year, a claim dismissed as wishful thinking by the Pakistan Muslim League government whose five-year term will end in 2018.
