Pakistan coalition talks loom after strong vote for Khan
ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan faces days of political horsetrading after the final few election results released yesterday showed no clear majority, but a strong performance by independent candidates loyal to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI) defied a monthslong 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.
The country’s military chief said yesterday that elections were “not a zero-sum competition of winning and losing,” and urged an end to political polarization.
“The nation needs stable hands and a healing touch to move on from the politics of anarchy and polarization,” said General Syed Asim Munir, according to a statement from the military.
There were reports late Friday of leaders from several parties arriving in PML-N’s power base of Lahore for talks.
“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.
In an AI-generated video produced by PTI, Khan was credited as claiming victory for the party.
“According to independent sources, we were winning 150 national assembly seats before the rigging started,” said the message posted on his Twitter account, which featured a genuine video clip of him from a year ago with AI-generated voice and speech.
A slow counting process showed independents had won at least 99 seats – 88 of them loyal to Khan – by yesterday morning.
PML-N took 71 and the Pakistan People’s Party snapped up 53, with 15 of the elected 266seat National Assembly still to be announced.