UPDATE - Pakistan elections: Electioneering ends with tough contest expected between parties, independent candidates

REVISES WITH OFFICIAL END OF ELECTIONEERING, CHANGES LEDE, HEADLINE, EDITS THROUGHOUT

By Islamuddin Sajid and Aamir Latif

ISLAMABAD (AA) – Electioneering in Pakistan ended Tuesday night just hours ahead of the Feb. 8 general elections in which a tough contest is expected between candidates across constituencies.

No rally or public meeting can now be held, and candidates can only use closed-door meetings and face-to-face contact with the voters.

The South Asian nation, which has the world's fifth largest population, is set to elect members to the lower house, also known as the National Assembly, as well as four provincial assemblies on Thursday, with more than 128.5 million people eligible to vote.

In the last polls held in the country in 2018, voter turnout was nearly 52%.

According to Election Commission, as many as 28,626 candidates from about 150 political parties are vying for 266 National Assembly and 749 provincial assembly seats across the country.

There fewer public rallies as the majority of political parties used digital platforms to reach out to voters.

Major parties that organized public gatherings are Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), led by three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and the center-left Pakistan People's Party (PPP), particularly in their strongholds of northeastern Punjab and southern Sindh provinces, respectively.

The Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Muttahida Quami Movement, Awami National Party, Balochistan National Party, and several other political parties are also competing for seats in the national and provincial assemblies.

The parties are competing against each other, as well as independent candidates, particularly those backed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), whose founder and former Prime Minister Imran Khan is in jail after being sentenced in three separate cases including corruption and leaking state secrets. The Election Commission has also barred his party from using its iconic cricket bat electoral symbol to identify candidates contesting the polls.

Without a party emblem, PTI candidates were awarded different election symbols, forcing them to devise a new electoral strategy: use digital platforms to campaign.

The PTI streamed an online rally featuring at its end a four-minute speech written by Khan and delivered by an AI voice replicating the 71-year-old former cricket. It used other social media platforms such as TikTok to campaign, as well as created a web portal to provide information on party-backed independent candidates.

Streets across the country were also adorned with party flags, banners, posters, and life-size portraits of the candidates seeking voter support.

Amid security concerns, the government issued an advisory asking people in southwestern Balochistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces to avoid large public gatherings.

Main contest is expected to be between the PML-N, PPP, and independent candidates backed by PTI. Sharif was jailed before the 2018 election but freed to seek medical treatment in the UK. He returned to Pakistan last year and has since seen his convictions overturned, allowing him to run again.