STORY: Voting begins for Pakistan's general elections
SHOOTING TIME: Feb. 8, 2024
DATELINE: Feb. 8, 2024
LENGTH: 0:03:41
LOCATION: Islamabad
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. STANDUP (English): ALI JASWAL, Xinhua reporter
2. various shots of polling stations in Islamabad

STORYLINE:

STANDUP (English): ALI JASWAL, Xinhua reporter
"Polling for Pakistan's one-day general elections started all across the country right now Thursday morning. It has just started at 8 a.m. local time and according to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the voting process would continue uninterrupted till 5:00 p.m. local time. Polling for the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies are being held on the same day. According to the ECP, over 128 million Pakistani people, or more than half of the country's total population, are eligible to vote in the general elections. ECP announced that over 5,000 candidates would contest the 265 general seats in the National Assembly and over 12,000 candidates would be competing for the 590 general seats for the provincial assemblies in the four provinces, including northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, eastern Punjab province, southwestern Balochistan province and the southern Sindh province. And moreover, over 90,000 polling stations have been established all across Pakistan. Originally, elections were to be held for 266 seats in the lower house, but the elections for one of the seats had been postponed due to the death of a candidate, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Islamabad.
(XHTV)