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Parliamentary elections to be held in Pakistan

The five-year term of the Pakistani government expired in April

ISLAMABAD, May 11 (Itar-Tass) - The elections in the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistani parliament, will be held in Pakistan on Saturday. On the results of the parliamentary elections a new government will be formed on the basis of the parliamentary majority. The five-year term of the Pakistani government expired in April.

The election struggle will be waged for 272 deputy seats in the National Assembly. The lower house of Pakistani parliament has 342 deputy seats, but 60 of them are fixed for women on the permanent basis and ten seats for representatives of religious minorities.

The Senate, the upper house of parliament, has 104 seats and is elected for six years by the deputies of the lower house of the federal parliament and the legislative assemblies of the provinces.

According to the Pakistani Constitution, all citizens over 21 years are entitled to vote in the republic regardless their sex and religious identity.

The polling stations will open at 08:00 local time (07:00 Moscow time) and will work until 17:00 local time (16:00 Moscow time) on Saturday. The first preliminary election results will be made public already at about 19:00 local time (18:00 Moscow time) on Saturday.

According to the estimates of the experts, the chances to gain the largest number of seats in the National Assembly have the Pakistani Peoples Party, the Pakistani Muslim League and the Movement For Justice.

Leader of the Movement For Justice Imran Khan, who has got the head injury after the falling from a high rostrum at a rally of his supporters in Lahore on May 6, dropped from the election race on May 9. He cancelled all previously scheduled speeches for the voters. However, according to the experts, this fact will hardly affect the election results of the Movement For Justice.

The security measures were toughened in all Pakistani provinces. As the date of the elections was getting closer the terrorist activities have been intensifying in the country. The extremists of the Pakistan Taliban movement Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan named upcoming elections as ‘anti- Islamic’ and pledged to unleash a real manhunt against the candidates in the deputies and their supporters. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban extremists threatened to stage several high-profile terrorist acts with the suicide bombers on May 11.

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