Cricket star Imran Khan wins election but needs coalition
It’s official: Pakistan’s Election Commission on Friday declared former cricket star Imran Khan’s party the winner of Pakistan’s historic third consecutive election of a civilian government, but he didn’t win an outright majority and must form a coalition.
After two days of tediously slow vote counting, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won 116 of 269 seats in the National Assembly with his nearest rival, Shahbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League, winning 64 seats.
Sharif, who heads the party of jailed exprime minister Nawaz Sharif, earlier rejected the results charging widespread fraud and manipulation.
Election officials said there was a 52 per cent voter turnout, down slightly from the 2013 turnout of 54.8 per cent.
A European Union monitoring team Friday gave a passing grade to election day polling in Pakistan.
“Over all the election results are credible,” said Michael Gahler, EU team leader.
But it gave a failing grade to the pre-polling campaigning marred by intimidation of the media and unfair targeting of the former ruling party, which it said overshadowed the successes.
“Our overall assessment of the election process is that it is not as good as in 2013,” he said.
In Pakistan, where a British-modeled parliamentary system is in place, voters on Wednesday elected lawmakers to both its National Assembly and its four provincial Parliaments.
Fawad Chaudhry, spokesman for Khan’s party, said efforts were already underway to form a coalition, looking to both independents and allies, but the process is likely to take several days. Still, on Thursday the 65-year-old Khan made his first speech to the nation declaring his party victorious based on projections.
“Today in front of you, in front of the people of Pakistan, I pledge I will run Pakistan in such a way as it has never before been run,” Khan said, vowing to wipe out corruption, strengthen institutions he called dysfunctional and regain national pride by developing international relationships based on respect and equality.
But there is a long way to go before Pakistan’s national and provincial governments are in place and Khan can set out on his agenda.