Had EVMs been there today...: Pakistan President

Pakistan President Arif Alvi expressed his frustration over the delayed election results and stated that if the electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been in use during the general elections on February 8, the nation would not be facing this current crisis, Geo News reported.

Despite the commission's lofty claims, the Election Commission of Pakistan's new Election Management System (EMS) failed, he said.

Notably, the election regulator has yet to release the preliminary results for every constituency, nearly seventy-two hours after the polls closed.

In a post on social media platform X, President Alvi said: "Had EVMs been there today, my dear beloved Pakistan would have been spared this crisis."

President Alvi recalled the fight for the EVMs waged by the previous PTI-led government, saying that the entire endeavour -- which involved more than 50 meetings at the presidency alone -- was abandoned.

"Remember 'our' long struggle for EVMs. EVM had paper ballots that could be counted separately by hand (like it is being done today) but it also had a simple electronic calculator/counter of each vote button pressed," he said.

The president, according to Geo News, said that the totals of every candidate would have been available and printed within five minutes of the closing of the poll if the machines were used.

Springing a surprise, independents backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party won the lion's share of 102 seats in the National Assembly in Thursday's election.

Khan's party has already claimed victory in the elections.

The group was followed by Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 73 seats, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with 54, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) with 17 and 11 other seats going to smaller parties, as the result of 257 seats out of 265 was announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

To form a government, a party must win 133 seats out of 265 in the National Assembly. Election to one seat was postponed after the death of a candidate.

Overall, 169 seats are needed to secure a simple majority out of its total 336 seats, which include the reserved slots for women and minorities.

Meanwhile, efforts to form a unity government gained momentum after the three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who seems to enjoy the backing of the Pakistan Army, on Friday appealed to other political parties to join hands to pull cash-strapped Pakistan out of its current difficulties.