Edited by Deepali Verma
Pakistan faces days of political horse-trading after the final few election results released early on February 10 showed no clear majority, but a strong performance by independent candidates who were loyal to the jailed former prime minister Imran Khan was witnessed.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) defied a months-long crackdown that crippled the campaigning and forced their candidates to run as independents with a combined showing in the election that still put forth a challenge for their chief rivals.
Long delays in results that brewed up further allegations that the military establishment were engaged in vote-rigging, the army-backed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) declared its win as the party with the largest number of seats.
In order to form a government, the party founder and three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will be forced to cut deals with rivals and independents. Reportedly, late hours of February 9 saw leaders from other parties arriving in PML-N’s power base of Lahore for talks.
“We lack sufficient majority to run the government ourselves, therefore we invite the other parties and successful candidates to work with us,” Sharif said at his party headquarters in Lahore.
A slow counting process saw independents’ victory at least 98 seats — 87 of them loyal to Khan — by early hours of February 10. PML-N had won 69 and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) bagged 51, with the final 20 or so seats of the elected 266-seat National Assembly still to be announced.
The remaining unelected seats will be given to religious minorities and female candidates at a later date.
Khan loyalists had most of their victory in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where police revealed that at least two PTI supporters were killed on February 9 and over 20 wounded as they protested in Shangla district. This was the first serious post-election violence reported.
Protests were allegedly conducted after rigged results in Peshawar, that is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Quetta in Balochistan province.
‘Silver lining’
Sharif’s PML-N had been expected to emerge victorious in most seats, with analysts pointing out that its 74-year-old founder comes with the blessing of the military-led establishment.
Khan was held from contesting the election after being handed several lengthy prison sentences in the days leading up to the vote.
Candidates who contested the elections as independents cannot form a government on their own, but can nominate affiliation to elected parties within 3 days of victory.
The practice frequently leads to deal-making in Pakistan politics, which could dilute PTI’s success.
“PTI as a party and political group, despite being subjected to important efforts by the civilian and military establishment, has held on to its vote bank,” said Bilal Gilani, who happens to be executive director of polling group Gallup Pakistan.
“It showcases that the military does not always get their way — that is the silver lining,” he told AFP.
The PPP has its popularity largely limited to its Sindh heartland, which is better than expected, with leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari pointing out early results were “very encouraging”.
UK, US concerns over vote
Britain has expressed “serious concerns” over the vote process, while the United States has said that the “claims of interference or fraud should be fully investigated”.
Caretaker Interior Minister Gohar Ejaz defended the “difficult decision” to suspend mobile phone services on security grounds.
“We know that suspension of mobile services will be impacting the transmission of election results across Pakistan and further delay the process, but the choice between this delay and our citizens’ safety was quite straightforward,” he said in a statement on February 9.
Usama Khilji, who is a digital rights activist, said that the mobile service blackout “strengthens the well-known perception that the elections are rigged by the deep state”.
Election day saw violence, largely in the border regions neighbouring Afghanistan, with 61 attacks nationwide, the interior ministry said on February 9.
Nearly 16 people were killed that included 10 security force members while 54 were wounded.
