In the first phase of local body elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), polling has ended in 17 districts. The polling process continued from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Elections are being held for the election of 65 mayors and tehsil chairmen in the 17 districts of the province. Through local body elections, mayors and tehsil chairmen will be elected in 2,382 village councils and city councils.

It should be noted that about 37,000 candidates are in the fray in these districts, out of which the people in the first phase of local body elections besides the mayors of urban areas of Peshawar, Mardan, Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Kohat and chairmen of 66 tehsils of other districts and Officials from 2383 union councils will be elected.

Unofficial results and non-final of KP local body elections so far

Peshawar

According to unconfirmed unofficial results, Rizwan Bangash of PTI is leading for Mayor of Peshawar with 388 votes.

Swabi Razzar Tehsil

ANP candidate Ghulam Haqqani is leading with 81 votes, according to unconfirmed results of Government Girls Primary School 2 in Razzar Tehsil of Swabi.

Tehsil Tank

In the Tank Gulshan Colony, Mohammad Ramzan of PTI is leading with 183 votes. In the Mardan mayoral seat, ANP's Hamitaullah is leading with 73 votes and in the mayoral seat independent candidate, Shafi Jan is leading with 27 votes.

Jahangira Tehsil

According to the results of polling station 138 of Jahangira Tehsil of Nowshera, the ANP candidate got 69 votes while the PTI candidate got 30 votes.

Hangu Tehsil

Unofficial result of 9 polling stations on the seat of Hangu Tehsil Chairman, Independent candidate Amir Ghani is leading with 1117 votes, JUI-F candidate Muhammad Qasim is trailing with 970 votes.

Haripur Ghazi Tehsil

According to the unofficial results of the polling station in Ghazi Tehsil of Haripur, Miravis Yousafzai of JUI is leading with 262 votes while independent candidate Khayyam Islam is at the second position with 146 votes.

Report from Haripur where Samiullah Khan is leading with 521 votes in Government Boys High School, Akhtar Nawaz Khan of PTI has 221 votes, Sardar Haroon of PML-N League got 76 votes.

Mardan 

According to the unofficial result of a polling station in Tehsil Mayor of Mardan has come out. ANP candidate Himayatullah Mayar got 153 votes while JUI's Maulana Amanat Shah Haqqani got 87 votes. Lakhkar Khan of PTI was third with 68 votes.

Kohat

 Unofficial result of 7 polling stations on the mayoral seat, PTI's Salman Shinwari leading with 1148 votes, independent candidate Shafi Jan trailing with 386 votes.

Charsadda

Taimoor Khattak of Charsadda Tehsil ANP is leading with 240 votes.

Bajaur

Latif Jan of Jamaat-e-Islami is leading in Bajaur Tehsil Nawagai with 397 votes.

In Bannu Wazir sub-division, Ghulam Haqqani of Awami National Party won with 22743 votes and PTI's Balanda Iqbal stood second with 13023 votes.

In Kohat’s 81 polling stations, independent candidates and JUI had a tough contest. Independent candidate Shafi Jan secured 10,392 votes while JUI’s Qari Sherzaman bagged 10,232 votes.

Takht Bhai’s unofficial  and unconfirmed results of 74 polling stations showed Hafiz Muhammad Saeed of JUI is leading with 12117 votes and Mumtaz Khan Mohmand of Muslim League is behind with 9178 votes.

In Haripur, Chairman’s seat went to an independent candidate Samiullah Khan while Akhtar Nawaz Khan of PTI stood second.

In Lakki Marwat, results of 20 polling stations showed an independent candidate, Zafarullah Khan, stood first with 4360 votes. 

In Mathura, results of 5 polling stations for the Chairman's seat, pointed to the victory of independent candidate Iftikhar Ahmad with 905 votes and second position went to JUI candidate Faridullah with 784 votes.

Background

Earlier, The polling in the first round of Local Government elections marred by the incidents of violence and irregularities in 17 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa came to an end at 5 pm today (Sunday) and the process of vote counting has started.

The election staff closed the doors of the polling stations. However, they allowed people who were inside the booths to cast their votes.

However, reports poured in that at a polling station set up at Government Girls Primary School, Zargarabad, Peshawar, people refused to leave the polling station even after the end of the balloting time. They kept on scaling the walls of the school to poll their votes. 

The next phase of LB elections will be held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa next month.

For the first round, the polling started at 8 am and continued till 5 pm.

Strict security arrangements were in place as a total of 79,479 police and other law enforcement agencies personnel were deployed in the 17 districts where the voting was taking place. Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshehra and Peshawar were among the 17 districts.

However, voting for the election of Dera Ismail Khan mayor city council was deferred after the murder of ANP candidate Umar Khatab in an armed attack on Saturday morning. The security in DI Khan and nearby districts was beefed up following the murder.

ECP statistics

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), 12.66 million voters are registered across the 17 districts with 7. 015 million male voters and 5.653 million female voters.

As many as 37,752 candidates were in the run for different categories in the first phase of the elections. Among these 689 were in the run to lead the city and tehsil councils while 19,285 candidates were in the run for the slot of general councillors, chairmen in village and neighbourhood councils.

Besides, 3,905 candidates were flexing their muscles for the seats for women councillors, 7513 for peasant councillors, 6081 for youth councillors and 282 for minority councillors.

As many as 876 women councillors have already been elected unopposed in different village and neighbourhood councils across the province. A large number of minority councillors have been elected unopposed.

Security arrangements

A total of 9,223 polling stations and 28,892 polling booths have been set up for Sunday's voting.

Of these, 2,507 polling stations have been declared most sensitive, 4,188 sensitive, while 528 have been categorized as normal. As many as 860 polling stations have been designated as sensitive, 165 as most sensitive, and 224 as normal in the provincial capital. Around 11,000 policemen and personnel of other forces have been deployed for security during polling in Peshawar alone.

This is for the first time that LG polls are being held in districts of erstwhile Fata.

Political parties have fielded candidates for almost all seats and at least 17 candidates are competing for the mayorship of Peshawar.