Lara Villalón Istanbul

Istanbul

Updated Sunday, February 11, 2024-2:17 p.m.

  • Imran Khan Pakistan maintains support for imprisoned leader, who wins parliamentary elections without achieving a majority

Pakistan faces a period of great uncertainty after general election results fail to reveal a clear majority to form a government. The electoral commission announced the official count this Sunday,

with a clear victory

for candidates affiliated with the party of imprisoned leader, Imran Khan, the Pakistan Justice Movement (PTI). Due to the multiple judicial obstacles imposed against the party and former Prime Minister Khan, dozens of party members were forced to run in the elections as independent candidates. Even so, they have received unprecedented social support, becoming the most voted option with 97 seats of the 265 that make up the Pakistani parliament. Some 60 million Pakistanis went to the polls, a participation of 47%, three points less than in the last elections.

The country faces days of political haggling to achieve a political coalition of

at least 133 seats

to govern. Unbeatable support for Khan has ruined the chances that the military-backed option, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, can govern with a majority. Sharif's party won 76 seats, followed by Bilawal Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) with 54. The families of Sharif and Bhutto have alternated power in the country for decades and in these recent elections they have shown signs of rapprochement, in an attempt to form a possible government coalition to seize power from Imran Khan's party. Sharif's Muslim League, which is leading the negotiations, has already announced a coalition with the fourth most voted force, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which won 17 seats. "We do not have a sufficient majority to run the government ourselves, so we invite other parties and candidates who have been successful to work with us," Sharif told the media.

The three-time former prime minister returned to the country just

four months ago after self-imposed exile

to avoid a prison sentence for corruption. Once in Pakistan he was acquitted of all charges and ran as leader of the Muslim League's candidacy, a proposal that was perceived as the army's choice to govern the country. Throughout the country's history, the general staff has promoted or removed various political leaders from power through coups d'état. Although they approved Khan in 2018, analysts point out that friction with the army increased until he was overthrown by a vote of no confidence in 2022 and his subsequent imprisonment last year. Despite being imprisoned for almost a year and having received two prison sentences and political disqualification, Khan has barely lost popularity in the country.

Given the victory of the PTI, the army has called for calm and has asked political parties

to show "maturity and unity"

to form a government. "Elections are not a zero-sum, win-lose competition, but an exercise in determining the mandate of the people," Chief of Army Staff Syed Asim Munir said in a statement. "As the people of Pakistan have reposed their trust in the constitution of Pakistan, it is now up to political parties to respond with maturity and unity," the note added.

For its part, the PTI has harshly criticized the electoral authority for

not yet revealing the results of ten of the seats

and has assured that fraud has occurred in the elections because according to its calculations, the party obtained more than 150 seats. "The PTI is a peaceful party that has marked the beginning of a revolution through the polls. They are stealing our mandate, but we will not allow our struggle to be hijacked by nefarious designs," the party's leader said in a tweet. Gohar Khan. The PTI announced that it will challenge the results and has called for protests in the country's main cities. The group also published a video of Imran Khan generated with artificial intelligence, in which the leader denounced electoral fraud. "According to independent sources, we were winning with 150 seats in the National Assembly before the manipulation began," the video claimed. Security forces responded by banning gatherings of more than four people in public spaces, in an attempt to quell the protests.

The Free and Fair Elections Network (FAFEN) issued a statement that the results

had been "compromised" by the lack of transparency

in the voting process, after authorities interrupted mobile and internet communication for almost twelve hours. for security reasons".