Fudging fears in Pakistan election but Imran Khan’s rebels defy odds

Pakistan’s general elections produced a fractured mandate on Friday, with independent candidates backed by incarcerated former premier Imran Khan’s party pulling off stunning wins to inch ahead of Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N party and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
While the vote on Thursday was seen as largely free and fair, the results were unusually delayed, leading to allegations of fudging and tampering of ballots. Results continued to trickle in on Friday evening, more than 24 hours after the close of balloting.
A tally of results declared by the Election Commission of Pakistan at 11pm showed that of the 136 seats counted from the 265 contested, independent candidates backed by Khan had won 49, the PML-N 42 and the PPP 34. However, a tally by Geo News, a leading TV channel, logged 237 seats as counted as at 11pm and showed independent candidates leading in 95 seats (largely backed by PTI), followed by 67 for PML-N and 52 for PPP.
Khan, who was recently given prison terms in three separate cases of treason, graft and having an un-Islamic marriage, was barred from contesting the election and the PTI was the focus of a sweeping crackdown, with candidates prevented from holding rallies by election officials and police and the party denied its election symbol, a cricket bat. This forced PTI candidates to contest as independents.

While the overall turnout for Thursday’s election was about 50%, it became apparent that the PTI had done a better job in mobilising voters through its extensive grassroots network. There were also reports the PML-N, which had been widely tipped to emerge as the single largest party following the crackdown on the PTI, had not been able to get more of its supporters to the polling booths.
Sharif, the 74-year-old three-time premier who returned to Pakistan last October after four years in self-exile, said on Friday he will seek to form a government with the support of other parties, marking a shift from his rejection of a coalition just a day earlier. He tasked his younger brother, former premier Shehbaz Sharif, to meet leaders of other parties to join the coalition.
However, it was clear that the independent candidates backed by the PTI would play a decisive role in the formation of the next government. People familiar with the matter said the PTI was mulling the possibility of getting the independent candidates to join the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen Pakistan (MWM), a party led by Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, a close ally of Khan, so that they could function cohesively. This would also serve the goal of keeping the independent candidates together in the face of reports that some of them could be pressured by the military establishment to join other smaller parties that could extend support to a government formed by the PML-N.
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Independent candidates can join any party within 72 hours of victory — a practice that has frequently led to horse-trading in Pakistani politics.
“These elections were quite crucial for both the PTI and the PML-N. The PTI has put up a very good fight in these elections despite the fact that they lost their iconic election symbol, the cricket bat, just before the elections,” said Mehmal Sarfraz, a Lahore-based journalist.
“A lot of PTI leaders and candidates are in hiding, so could not campaign, and yet they managed to motivate their voters to come out and vote. The PML-N, on the other hand, seemed complacent and seemingly didn’t focus too hard on getting their voters out on polling day. They were looking for a simple majority but now they can’t form a government without coalition partners,” she said.
Getting the independent candidates to join a party would also ensure a share of the 76 reserved seats in the 342-member National Assembly or lower house of Parliament. The seats reserved mainly for women and religious minorities are distributed in line with a party’s vote share.
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Bilal Gilani, executive director of polling group Gallup Pakistan, said that even if the PTI is unable to form a government, the elections had shown “there are limits to political engineering”. He told AFP: “It shows that the military does not always get their way — that is the silver lining.”
The falling out between the PTI and the powerful army, which has ruled Pakistan for almost half of its history, had led to Khan’s ouster as prime minister in 2022. Most commentators believed the souring of relations between Khan and the military would benefit the PML-N, especially after Sharif was allowed by the establishment to return to Pakistan. However, the election results have shown that the PTI’s rise has largely been at the cost of the PML-N, especially in its erstwhile stronghold of Punjab.
Sharif, his brother Shehbaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz won from constituencies in Lahore, while Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari won from two constituencies in Sindh province. Former president Asif Ali Zardari also won from a constituency in Sindh, the PPP’s traditional stronghold.
The unofficial results of the voting for assemblies in the four provinces too went along expected lines. Independent candidates backed by the PTI were ahead in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, the PML-N was in the driving seat in Punjab province, while the PPP appeared set to form a government again in Sindh province. There were no clear winners in Balochistan province, which has largely been ruled by smaller regional parties.
The election was marred by violence, mostly in border regions neighbouring Afghanistan, with 61 attacks nationwide, the interior ministry said on Friday. Sixteen people, including 10 security personnel, were killed and 54 injured.