PAKISTANI POLICE VOW TO ACT AS CROWDS RALLY AGAINST ELECTION
▶ Former prime minister Khan’s party alleges vote-rigging and urges supporters to protest
Police in Pakistan have vowed strict action against protests after the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan urged supporters to rally against alleged vote-rigging in last week’s election.
Protesters gathered in Peshawar yesterday after Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party made unexpected electoral gains, which analysts said were partly driven by sympathy for its leader, who is serving a 14-year jail sentence.
Independent candidates – mostly backed by the PTI – took the most seats in the polls.
However, independents cannot form a government, and the country faces weeks of political uncertainty as rival parties try to negotiate coalitions.
In one significant upset, former interior minister Rana Sanaullah Khan, who once accused the PTI leader of inciting violence and called for him to be “eliminated”, lost his seat to the PTI’s Nisar Jutt in the Faisalabad district of Punjab province.
PTI leaders claim they would have won even more seats if not for vote-rigging, and Aleema Khan – Imran Khan’s sister – said the party’s votes had been “stolen”.
A nationwide blackout of mobile networks on election day and the slow counting of votes led to suspicions that the country’s military establishment was influencing the process to ensure success for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.
But PML-N stalwart and former railways minister Khawaja Saad Rafique lost the election in Lahore to the PTI’s Sardar Latif Khosa. The PMLN’s Saira Afzal Tarar, another former minister, lost her seat in Hafizabad.
The disputed result is an ominous sign in a country already grappling with rising debt and inflation, as well as a multipronged insurgency that includes the Pakistani Taliban
and Baloch separatists. “Throughout Pakistan, elections were manipulated in a subtle way,” PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan said on Saturday, calling on supporters to “protest peacefully”.
Authorities warned they would take strict action, invoking Section 144, a colonial-era law that restricts public gatherings.
“Some individuals are inciting illegal gatherings around the Election Commission and other government offices,” Islamabad’s police force said yesterday.
“Legal action will be taken against unlawful assemblies. It should be noted that soliciting
for gatherings is also a crime.” A similar warning was issued in Rawalpindi, just south of the capital, while dozens of police equipped with riot gear assembled near Liberty Market in Lahore.
The PTI emerged as the winners of Thursday’s vote despite a series of obstacles,
including a Supreme Court ruling in January banning the use of its cricket bat symbol, which crippled campaigning and forced candidates to run as independents.
“The results have clearly indicated that no single party possesses a simple majority to establish a government,” said Zahid Hussain, a political analyst and author.
“The political future of the country from this point onward is highly uncertain.”
But PTI leaders insist they have been given a “people’s mandate” to form the next government.
“The people have decided in favour of Imran Khan,” party
chairman Gohar Ali Khan said. There are three major stakeholders for the upcoming government, in addition to some smaller parties. Independent candidates are leading in the National Assembly, having won 101 seats. However, the PML-N secured 75 seats, while the third major party, the Pakistan People’s Party, won 54 seats, meaning the two parties could form a coalition.
On Saturday, Pakistan’s military chief told politicians to show “maturity and unity”.
“The nation needs stable hands and a healing touch to move on from the politics of anarchy and polarisation,” General Syed Asim Munir said.
A nationwide blackout of mobile networks and the slow counting of votes led to suspicions of military interference