Pak Elections: Name of PM candidate's kin missing from voting list

Lahore [Pakistan]: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif's daughter-in-law Zainab was not able to cast her vote in Lahore.

Geo TV, quoting sources, reported that Zainab, the daughter-in-law of PML-N's prime ministerial candidate, had to return without exercising her franchise after she found her name missing from the voter list.

Nearly 106 million registered voters are casting their ballot to elect a new government in Pakistan, where a prime minister has never been able to complete his or her five-year term.

This is the second time in the country's 70-year history that the power is transferring from one civilian government to another. Yet, the whole election process has remained impaired.

As many as 122 parties have fielded candidates, many of who belong to extremist organisations.

There have been attacks on candidates and campaign rallies. More than 150 people were killed when a powerful bomb went off in Mastung in the restive province of Balochistan.

The governing party has accused the military of pulling strings to prop up cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.
Even on Wednesday, as the polling was underway, a suspicious person, claiming to be a police officer, tried to enter Karachi's Lyari Bihar Colony polling station.

"The suspicious person has been taken to Chakewara Police Station," Superintendent of Poilice, Iftikhar Lodhi, told media.

Meanwhile, a large number of women are coming out in Peshawar to cast their votes, reported The Dawn.

The key parties, PML-N, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan's Peoples Party, have promised employment, houses and social welfare for the country's 200 million people.