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Pakistan’s election results were delayed on Friday following widespread turmoil on polling day, but early signals pointed to strong turnout for the party of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan despite a military-backed crackdown.
Results were only available for a handful of seats more than 12 hours after polls closed. Candidates loyal to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party had won 19 seats, while the Pakistan Muslim League-N party of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had won 17, according to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.
The Pakistan Peoples party, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, had 17 seats.
The early results, which followed a blanket shutdown of mobile networks on polling day, threatened to further polarise the country of 240mn. The PTI, widely considered Pakistan’s most popular party, denounced the delays and what it alleged were efforts to stop Khan — who was removed from office in a no-confidence vote in 2022 and then fell out with the powerful army — from returning to power.
The party wrote on social media platform X that it had “shocked and worried the entire system with the historic turnout”.
PTI supporters and observers said early counting suggested that the party had performed better than expected. The election is for 265 seats in Pakistan’s parliament, with another 70 seats filled indirectly.
Mushahid Hussain, a senator for PML-N, wrote on X that it was “probably the biggest election upset in Pakistan’s political history”.
The delays risked stoking further insecurity at a difficult time for Pakistan, which is facing an economic crisis and a surge in Islamist militancy. About 40 people were killed in a spate of attacks this week, including about a dozen on Thursday.
Khan, a former cricket star and populist, has been in jail since last year and was unable to contest the election under corruption charges. Thousands of PTI supporters have been detained and the party’s candidates were largely unable to openly campaign.
The PTI alleged the mobile blackout was designed to prevent voters from accessing polling information and suppress turnout.
The UN human rights body this week criticised what it said was a “pattern of harassment” against the PTI, while Amnesty International called Thursday’s internet shutdown “reckless” and “a blunt attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly”.
Pakistan’s authorities have defended the integrity of the polls, with a caretaker government denying military interference and saying the mobile network shutdown was necessary for security.
But analysts said the military had taken a more overt role in sidelining the PTI ahead of the election. “The crackdown on the PTI has gone further than any other crackdown on a political party,” said Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think-tank.
One of the new government’s first priorities will be to address Pakistan’s economic predicament. Inflation hit nearly 30 per cent in December, while a $3bn IMF support package that helped the country avert default last year will end in April, forcing the new government to return for new funds, in exchange for which it will need to make painful economic reforms.
Nawaz Sharif, who returned to Pakistan last year after four years of self-imposed exile from corruption charges, told journalists on Thursday that only his party could resolve the country’s crises. “If you are to solve the problems of Pakistan, one party ought to get a majority,” he said. “The ruling structure must not depend on anyone else.”
Sharif had been facing a lifetime ban from office under the conviction, until the Supreme Court overturned it last month.
To the many voters, particularly young people swept up by Khan’s promises for a “new Pakistan”, the prospect of another term under the Sharif dynasty — Nawaz’s brother Shehbaz also served as prime minister last year — left little hope.
“Ninety per cent of young people are with Imran Khan, but they’re scared,” said Sanya Amir, a 23-year-old student, outside a polling booth in Islamabad. “We’ve tried Nawaz Sharif three times. It’s time for Pakistan to try out something new.”
