Opponents are crying foul over former cricket star Imran Khan’s projected election win in Pakistan, where several defeated parties are rejecting the result as “rigged.”
Khan declared victory Thursday evening, despite issues with the ballot-counting system that left the full impact of Wednesday’s vote in doubt. The athlete-turned-politician is expected to become prime minister as head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party, which is projected to win the most seats in parliament. However, it was unclear early Thursday whether the PTI had secured the 137 seats needed for a majority government.
“Thanks to God, we won and we were successful,” Khan, 65, said in a televised address, before his victory was made official.
But Khan’s opponents claim it was the military — not God — that allowed him to win.
Before even half the votes were counted, Khan’s chief rival, Shahbaz Sharif, rejected the expected result, claiming the election was not fair.
“It is a sheer rigging,” Sharif said at a news conference on Thursday.
“The way the people’s mandate has blatantly been insulted, it’s intolerable.”
Sharif leads the Pakistan Muslim League, which held power until former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was jailed on corruption charges. Shahbaz Sahrif took over for his brother in the 2018 election, and is expected to finish with the second-most seats.
“Our democratic process has been pushed back by decades,” Shahbaz Sharif tweeted.
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Bilawal Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, also condemned the election process.
“Inexcusable and outrageous,” tweeted Bhutto, the son of former PM Benazir Bhutto. His party was projected to finish third in the vote.
The outcry has stoked fears that disgruntled losers might delay the formation of the next government, deepening Pakistan’s economic woes and fuelling an already growing militancy.
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In the shadow of the military
Democracy remains a relatively new and fragile notion in Pakistan, where the military has held power through most of its 71-year history, either directly or indirectly. Wednesday’s vote marks just the second time in the country’s history that one civilian government has handed power over to another.
There were widespread concerns about military interference throughout the election campaign, which only grew louder when 350,000 troops were deployed to 85,000 polling stations on Election Day. The troops were requested by election officials.
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“The shadow of the military looming over the election amplifies the continued struggles of democracy in Pakistan,” Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“Allegations of army meddling and the fact that troops will be deployed on mass levels on election day make it crystal clear that this election process is not entirely a civilian-led process.”
A spokesman for the military dismissed accusations of interference as “malicious propaganda” on Thursday.
Despite the increased military presence, a suicide bomber still managed to strike at a polling station in Quetta on election day, killing 31 people.
It was a bloody finale to a violent election campaign. A parliamentary candidate was killed along with 148 others in a bombing last month, which has since been claimed by the Islamic State. Scattered clashes between supporters of various parties have also resulted in a handful of deaths and more than a dozen casualties.
Analysts had predicted the violent campaign would produce a disputed result.
“Whatever way elections run, I see a lot of instability,” defence analyst Ayesa Siddiqa told AP on Wednesday, ahead of the vote.
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“This is quite a schizophrenic moment for Pakistan’s democracy,” said Moeed Yusuf, associate vice president of the Asia Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“On the one hand, you have completing 10 years of uninterrupted democratic rule,” he told the AP. “On the other hand, you’ve got all sorts of pre-poll rigging and manipulation.”
Voting issues
Pakistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission says the election campaign was fraught with issues, including “blatant, aggressive and unabashed attempts to manipulate” the outcome. The organization says candidates were being intimidated and the media was being silenced throughout the campaign.
The commission has also raised concerns about the election result. The group said polling staff “appeared to be biased toward a certain party” in some areas, although it did not name the party. It also claimed women were being barred from voting in some areas.
Under Pakistani law, election results will be nullified if at least 10 per cent of the country’s 47 million women do not vote.
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Officials are blaming a breakdown in the ballot-counting system for delays in announcing the official results.
Voting tallies were being conducted manually on Thursday, according to Babar Yaqoob, secretary for the Election Commission of Pakistan. He blamed a breakdown in the voting software for the delay.
“There is no conspiracy, nor any pressure in delay of the results,” Yaqoob told reporters.
“The delay is being caused because the result transmission system has collapsed.”
Imran Khan, who became a national hero after leading Pakistan to its only Cricket World Cup in 1992, has vowed to investigate allegations against the election process.
“I think this has been the clearest, fairest election Pakistan has ever had,” he said in his televised address.
—With files from Reuters and The Associated Press
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