Pakistan parties vow to oppose Khan, say vote was ‘rigged’

The Pakistan Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which came in second with 64 seats, along with the Pakistan People’s Party, which won 43, a religious alliance known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal or MMA, with 12 seats, and the secular Awami National Party issued a joint declaration against the alleged vote rigging and suppression of the media. They condemned the interference of “state agencies” in the election, a veiled reference to the military and intelligence apparatus.

Along with another small party that has protested the election, they would have 125 seats, enough to theoretically prevent Khan from becoming prime minister. But the Pakistan People’s Party has said he should be allowed to form a government, and the parties opposed to Khan are ideologically at odds with one another.

Fazlur Rehman, a hard-line cleric who heads the MMA, said the parties rejected the interference of state agencies in the vote and the suppression of the media. Former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, of the Pakistan People’s Party, called the July 25 election the “worst rigged” in history. Supporters of the Awami National Party, which won a single seat, have held demonstrations in different cities against the alleged vote rigging.

Fawad Chaudhry, a spokesman for Khan’s party, said that with independents it has the support of 168 members of the national parliament. He said it also has a majority in the Punjab province — the country’s largest — and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the northeast, bordering Afghanistan.