Pakistan Stock Exchange bullish as PTI leads in polls

The stock market in Pakistan witnessed a bullish trend on Thursday morning as early election results tipped Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for victory.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange saw a significant increase in activity during early trading, a day after the country voted for its second consecutive democratic transfer of power, as the benchmark KSE-100 index gained 767 points to reach 42,106 points, Geo News reported.

Preliminary results indicated the PTI obtaining a clear edge over other parties in the National Assembly tally.

As party workers from across the country celebrated the results, the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) flat out rejected the pending results of Wednesday's election, citing "outright rigging" and accusing officials of preventing its representatives from overseeing the count.

However, the Election Commission denied the claims, saying a new electronic results system suffered unexpected glitches.

Despite the technical issues, "these elections were 100 per cent fair and transparent", said Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Muhammad Raza, in his first comments after polls closed.

--IANS

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