Global News Desk:
The vote counting for Pakistan's
national election concluded on Sunday, revealing that independent candidates,
largely supported by incarcerated former Prime Minister Imran Khan, secured
victory in 101 out of the 264 seats, as indicated on the election commission's
website.
The final tally was released more
than 60 hours after voting concluded in Thursday's national elections, a delay
that has raised questions about the process.
The independents came in ahead of
the party of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, which won 75 seats,
making it the largest single party in parliament as Khan's independents ran as
individuals. Sharif has said his party is talking to other groups to form a
coalition government as it had failed to win a clear majority on its own.
Khan's PTI party had threatened
to hold nationwide peaceful protests on Sunday if the vote tally was not
released overnight, and some small protests took place overnight.
Pakistan's interim government
says the delay was caused by communication issues due to a mobile internet
outage on election day. The outage, which authorities said was for security
reasons, drew concern from rights groups and foreign governments, including the
United States.
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.
Around 93 of the independent
candidates who won seats were associated with Khan's PTI party. Khan's
supporters were running as independents because they had been barred from
contesting the polls under his party's electoral symbol by the election
commission for not complying with electoral laws.
Despite the ban and Khan's
imprisonment for convictions on charges ranging from leaking state secrets to
corruption and an unlawful marriage, millions of the former cricketer's supporters
came out to vote for him, even though he cannot be part of any government while
he remains in prison.
One disadvantage the independents
face in trying to form a government is they are not eligible to be allocated
any of parliament's 70 reserved seats, which are distributed according to party
strength in the final tally. Sharif's party could get up to 20 of these seats.
The election commission
previously flagged that results for two seats could not yet be included - one
in which a candidate was killed requiring the postponement of polling, and
another in which polling would be completed later this month. (News Source By The Daily Star)
