Pakistan: Strong Vote for Jailed Imran Khan

Sudan Events – Sumaya Sayed 

Pakistan faces days of political horse-trading after the final few election results released Saturday showed no clear majority, but a strong performance by independent candidates loyal to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) defied a months-long crackdown that crippled campaigning and forced their candidates to run as independents with a combined showing in Thursday’s election that still challenged their chief rivals.

But after long delays in results that prompted further allegations, the military establishment had engaged in vote-rigging, the army-backed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) declared victory as the party with the largest number of seats.

However, to form a government, the party founded by three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will be forced to cut deals with rivals and independents.

“We don’t have enough of a majority to run the government ourselves, therefore we invite the other parties and candidates who have been successful to work with us,” Sharif said at his party headquarters in Lahore.

A slow counting process showed independents had won at least 99 seats — 88 of them loyal to Khan — by Saturday morning.

Minor parties between them shared 27 seats — including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which took 17 — that are likely to be of great interest to PTI in coming days.

Most of the seats won by Khan loyalists were in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where police said at least two PTI supporters were killed Friday and more than 20 wounded when they protested against alleged vote rigging in Shangla district — the first serious post-election violence reported.

There were also protests in Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Quetta in Balochistan province.