Jailed Imran Khan's PTI Emerges As Front Runner Amidst Rigging Allegations (image-facebook/Imran Khan)Amidst accusations of rigging, jailed Imran Khan led PTI leads the race with 5 seats followed by Sharif’s PML-N with 4 seats. Bilawal Bhutto’s PPP has secured 3 seats so far based on early results in the Pakistan national election.
On February 9, around 3 am, ECP Special Secretary Zafar Iqbal announced the first results at a press conference in Islamabad. Addressing the delay, ECP Secretary Iqbal stated that the Returning Officers were still compiling the results, rejecting PTI’s accusations of the ECP manipulating the results. “This is not the case. By Friday morning, results will come to the fore.”
Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has become the front runner with 5 seats. Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) secured 4 seats, followed by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led by Bilawal Bhutto based on early results.
Backed by Imran Khan’s PTI, an independent candidate Samiullah Khan secured the PK-76 seat of the Kyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial Assembly by winning over 18,000 votes. PTI-backed independent candidate Fazal Hakeem Khan, also backed by the PTI, secured 25,300 votes to bag PK-6. Based on the initial results, another independent candidate Ali Shah, backed by PTI, took 30,022 votes bagging PK-4 constituency.
As Pakistan cast their ballots to elect its new president on Thursday, with polling started at 8 am and continued till 5 pm, a countrywide public holiday was announced for over 12 crore citizens to vote. Following the end of polling, counting began and results from poling stations started pouring in after more than ten hours, sparking accusations of electoral manipulation.
After increased complaints about the delay and questioning of the poll authority, the ECP directed all provincial Election Commissioners and Returning Officers to declare the results within 30 minutes or face strict consequences.
Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan is currently behind bars and barred from contesting based on corruption charges. The former Prime Minister has been in jail since August last year. PTI candidates are running as independents after not being allowed to use the party symbol.
To form the government, a party must secure 133 seats out of 265 being contested.