The Pakistan Tehreek-Insaf (PTI) emerged as the second largest party in terms of votes received in the May 11 general election, despite finishing third in terms of seats, data released on Monday showed.
Imran Khan’s PTI polled 7.7 million votes in the May 11 election to win 28 National Assembly seats, but the PPP, which led the outgoing government, took 32 seats with only 6.9 million votes.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, the voter turnout was reported at 55 percent, up from 44 percent in the 2008 polls.
In total, 46.2 million people voted this time as compared with 36.6 million five years ago.
Both, the PTI and the PPP, were well behind the PML-N, which took 126 seats and 14.9 million votes, according to the commission.
PML-N officials said they had persuaded 18 independent lawmakers to join the party, taking them comfortably beyond the 136 seats needed for majority in the Lower House.
In the National Assembly, 272 seats are elected directly. A further 70 seats reserved for women and minorities are distributed to parties according to the proportion of general seats they win.
