Imran Khan-backed candidates lead after over half of seats counted

Independent candidates backed by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan had won the most seats in Pakistan’s general election by Friday evening, official results from the Election Commission showed, as counting continued a day after polls marred by militant attacks and the suspension of mobile phone services.

As of 6:30 p.m. on Friday, independents had bagged 62 out of 156 seats counted so far while ex-premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) party received 46, followed by the Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari-led Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) with 39 seats.

Votes were held for 265 national assembly seats. A party needs 133 seats for a simple majority.

But despite being in the lead, the PTI complained late results showed manipulation and rigging had taken place in constituencies where candidates affiliated with the party had congested.

As per election laws, results had to be announced by 2 a.m. on Friday, nine hours after polling closed, with a delay of until 10am allowed in extenuating circumstances.

But as of Friday evening, the results of over a hundred seats were yet to be released, raising widespread concerns about manipulation and meddling in counting.

“The results of our winning candidates are being altered, though the fact is our party has won a majority in Punjab and KP (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) provinces,” PTI secretary-information Raoof Hassan told reporters at a press conference at the party’s central secretariat.

“We have already started meetings to discuss the ways to form our governments” at the center and the two provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said.

Independent members cannot form a government on their own under Pakistan’s election system which also includes reserved seats that will be allotted to parties based on their winnings. But independent members have the option to join any party after the elections.

In this case, most of the independent candidates are from Khan’s PTI, and were forced to contest as independents after the party was stripped of its iconic “bat” symbol ahead of polls over not holding intra-party elections, a legal requirement. PTI candidates thus had to contest as independents, each with a different election symbol, which the party had feared would become a source of confusion for voters in a country where over 40 percent of the population is illiterate.

The PTI-backed independents will now have a choice to join a party three days after the official notification of their victories.

‘Meddling’

Analysts have also raised concerns over the ECP missing its deadlines for the announcement of results, saying further delays would lead to more allegations of result-tampering in an already tainted election.

“The delay in results is catastrophic for the credibility of the results of the election,” Mosharraf Zaidi, a political analyst, told Arab News. “It is hard to imagine the election day itself having been better managed and hard to imagine the vote tallying having been worse managed.”

Salahuddin Safder, a spokesperson of the FAFEN election observer group, said the delay in the announcement of results “remained a concern” though the body’s observers had witnessed no major issues during polling.

“We did not receive many results till the first deadline of 2 a.m. and (the ECP) even missed the second deadline given in the law which is 10 a.m. next morning after the polls,” he said.

In the run-up to the polls, Khan’s PTI complained of a state-backed crackdown against the party, including not being allowed to campaign freely.

Khan, arguably the central pole of Pakistani politics, was missing from Thursday’s elections, as he has been in jail since August last year and is also disqualified from running for public office for 10 years.

The former premier was convicted in three back-to-back cases the week before polls and faces dozens of other legal challenges, including one case in which he is accused of ordering violent attacks on military installations on May 9, 2023, which could entail the death sentence.