Candidates connected to imprisoned former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan were in a tight race with Nawaz Sharif’s party on Friday, as election results began to come in after a protracted delay that heightened claims of electoral fraud. Although independent candidates connected to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) were prohibited from running in the election as a bloc on Thursday, the official results showed that his party has won 12 seats thus far, two fewer than the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Independent candidates were leading the race for many of the 266 assembly seats that are still up for grabs, according to unofficial tallies on local TV stations.
About eighteen hours after polling places closed, at 10:30 am GMT, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had only released the results for 37 National Assembly seats.
“Independents spring surprise, PTI-backed candidates defy odds,” said the headline of the English-language Express Tribune newspaper on Friday.
“That sense of certainty got upset very early on,” she added. “It’s definitely not the foregone conclusion that anybody thought it might be.”
“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-backed independent candidates have the ability to form the next federal government with a two-thirds majority,” he said in a video statement released to media.
After Thursday’s vote, analysts predicted that the PML-N would win the most seats because its 74-year-old founder, Nawaz Sharif, had the support of the establishment, which is led by the military. According to party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb, they remain optimistic about capturing Punjab, the largest province and necessary for establishing a government.
Meanwhile, the PPP seemed to be performing better than anticipated; its leader, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, described the initial results as “very encouraging.” Results had previously been delayed due to “internet problems,” but the election commission now stated that they would “be flowing in continuously.”
“Why did they take so long? Why not announce results before 1 am?” asked Ambreen Naz, 35, a businesswoman in Lahore.
“You know what will happen now? The stock market will open with volatile swings. The dollar will rise and the rupee will fall. All because they delayed the results and made them controversial,” she said.
At opening, the stock market index fell by almost four percent. To put it another way, Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, told AFP that the reason for the delay could be that the ruling class is attempting to establish a setting that will make it easier for them to influence elections.
“Vote tampering and rigging fears are rife, and for good reason,” he said more bluntly on X.
The election was marred by allegations of poll rigging and the government’s shutdown of the nation’s mobile phone network on election day, purportedly for security reasons. The mobile service outage, according to digital rights activist Usama Khilji, “strengthens the popular perception that the elections are rigged by the deep state.”
The mobile service outage, according to digital rights activist Usama Khilji, “strengthens the popular perception that the elections are rigged by the deep state.” Information secretary, Raoof Hasan, stated in a video statement that PTI candidates were leading in 125 constituencies, according to reports from party operatives on the ground.
