Pakistan election: Imran Khan’s Party Seeks Government Formation, threatens protests

According to a senior aide to the former prime minister, candidates supported by the party of imprisoned Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan intend to form a government. He urged supporters to demonstrate peacefully in the event that the election results are not made public. The 241 million citizens of the country cast ballots in a general election on Thursday as they battled political divisiveness and attempted to recover from an economic crisis.

At a time when prompt policy action is required to address numerous issues, Khan and his chief rival, three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, both declared victory on Friday. This has increased uncertainty over who will form the next government.

The leader of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-Insaf (PTI) party and the former prime minister’s attorney, Gohar Khan, urged “all institutions” in Pakistan to uphold the party’s mandate. He declared at a press conference that the party would stage nonviolent protests outside of government buildings on Sunday in response to the release of the entire polling results nationwide if they were not made public by Saturday night.

Following the announcement that they had been declared losers despite winning the polls, hundreds of Khan’s supporters assembled in the northwest city of Peshawar, led by two of his aides. Taimur Khan Jhagra, a former provincial minister of Khan, said, “We never thought it would happen to us.” Chants criticizing what they perceived as vote fraud were made by the demonstrators. Speaking to other parties about forming a coalition government, Sharif said on Friday that his party had become the only one with a majority. Results for 10 of the 265 seats up for grabs remained undetermined at 5 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Saturday, 48 hours after polls closed.

According to the most recent count, which was made public on the website of the election commission, independent candidates had secured 100 seats, while Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) secured 72 seats. According to a Reuters analysis, Khan and his party supported at least 90 of the winning independent candidates, placing them far ahead of Sharif’s party. The election commission had prohibited Khan’s supporters from participating in the polls under his party’s electoral symbol due to their noncompliance with electoral laws, so they were running as independents.