(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Millions of citizens are casting their votes in the United Kingdom general election, the BBC reported on Thursday.
Some 50,000 ballot stations opened across the UK. A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 50 million people registered to vote. As well as the general election, there are more than 9,000 council seats being contested across 279 English local authorities.
Mayors will also be elected in Bedford, Copeland, Leicester, Mansfield, Middlesbrough and Torbay. In Bedfordshire, the first referendum ever called on a council tax increase is taking place.
The local votes taking place mean that nearly every voter in England - excluding London where there are no local elections - will be given at least two ballot papers when they enter polling stations.
Some votes had been cast before Thursday through postal voting, which accounted for 15% of the total electorate at the 2010 general election, when the overall turnout was 65%.
As well as Westminster, elections will be held for 9,000 council seats across England. Ballot boxes have been sent to polling stations ahead of the count and people have been able to register to vote online.
Earlier this week, Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) shed light in depth on these elections in interviews with eminent scholars and experts. This election "is like no other, as it is shaping up to be unpredictable and exciting", according to analysts. The historian, Professor Peter Hennessy, underlined that the unpredictability is due to the fact that the result is going to be inconclusive. This would lead to what is called here, "a hung parliament", where no party achieves absolute majority.
This will raise the nagging question: "Who can win the vote of confidence from either the ruling Conservatives or the main opposition Labour party now, in the Queen's Speech in the House of Commons after the formation of the new government", he asserted in the interview with the Kuwaiti news agency.
Furthermore, prominent Professor of Political Science at Harvard University, Niall Ferguson (Scottish in origin) argued that the most important feature of the election is the surge of the Scottish National Party (SNP) which tried and failed to break up the UK in last September's referendum to secure Scotland's independence.
Nearly 50 million Britons are eligible to vote in the nation's first general election in five years.
Residents of each consistency, an area of around 70,000 citizens, elect a candidate to represent them in the House of Commons.
The party whichever emerges with the most seats (326 from the total of 650 seats) would have the best chance of forming a government, the analysts underlined.
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