Pakistan’s election results show independent candidates backed by Imran Khan’s party leading, with PML-N closely following. Political tension rises amid fraud allegations
Pakistan’s election commission on Sunday declared the final result of the Feb 8 general elections in which independent candidates backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party got the largest share of the seats by winning 101 seats.
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This result comes as Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) workers held protests nationwide against alleged rigging. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced the results of 264 out of 265 contested seats. The result of NA 88 in Khushab in Punjab province was withheld by the ECP due to complaints of fraud and it would be announced after redressing the grievances of the aggrieved. Election to one seat was postponed after the death of a candidate.
101 SEATS IN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Independent candidates, a vast majority of them backed by Khan’s PTI secured 101 seats in the National Assembly. In a post on social media platform X on Sunday, a PTI party secretary called off general protests but said there should be demonstrations at certain electoral offices where they were concerned about “forged” results.
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Embattled Imran’s PTI was followed by three-time former Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 75 seats, which technically is the single largest party in Parliament. The Pakistan Peoples Party of Bilawal Zardari Bhutto got 54 seats, and the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) of Urdu-speaking people who migrated from India during partition, got 17 seats.
Other smaller parties won the rest of the 12 seats. To form a government, a party must win 133 seats out of 265 contested seats in the National Assembly. Overall, 169 seats are needed to secure a simple majority out of a total of 336 seats in the National Assembly, which include the reserved slots for women and minorities which will be decided later.
Meanwhile, the complete results of the three provincial assemblies of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have been announced but the results of the three constituencies of the Balochistan assembly were still pending. In Punjab’s 296 contested seats, independents got 138 seats, closely followed by PML-N with 137 and other parties getting 21 seats. In Sindh’s total 130 contested seats, results of 129 were announced while the ECP ordered a re-poll in one constituency due to corruption. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, a total of 113 seats were up for grabs, and results of 112 seats had been announced and withheld the outcome on one seat.
In the violence-marred elections, Khan’s supporters were running as independents because they had been barred from contesting the polls under his party’s electoral symbol for not complying with electoral laws. Despite the ban and Khan’s imprisonment for convictions on several charges, millions of the former cricketer’s supporters came out to vote for their jailed leader.
(With agency inputs)
