Election results delay defended

Pakistan: Counting 60M votes amid militant attacks takes time

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister on Monday defended the widely criticized delay in announcing the results of last week’s parliamentary election, saying authorities took only 36 hours to count over 60 million votes while grappling with militant attacks.

Anwaarul-haq-kakar insisted that a “level playing field” was available to all political parties, including that of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan, and pointed out that election results in 2018, when Khan won office, had been announced after 66 hours.

Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf, won more seats than any other in Thursday’s election, but only because its candidates ran as independents after the party was expelled from the vote. The candidates won 93 out of 265 National Assembly seats, not enough to form a government. Khan couldn’t run because of criminal convictions that he calls politically motivated.

The Pakistan Muslim League-n party, led by three-time premier and ex-felon Nawaz Sharif, secured 75 seats. The Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, led by Bilawal Bhutto-zardari, came in third with 54 seats.

The two parties, which led the campaign to kick Khan out of office in 2022, were in talks to form a coalition government.

Sharif was marked as the Pakistani security establishment’s preferred candidate because of his smooth return to the country in October.

He spent four years in exile to avoid serving prison sentences, but his convictions were overturned within weeks of his arrival.

The vote was overshadowed by allegations of vote-rigging and an unprecedented mobile phone shutdown. The Election Commission denied the allegations of rigging.

Kakar told a news conference that mobile phone service was suspended on election day for security reasons following a pair of militant attacks that killed 30 people in southwestern Baluchistan province a day before the vote. He said that security forces last week killed a key militant from the Islamic State group who was behind the elections-related attacks.

He said he could afford a delay in announcing results “but not the terrorism.”