Political turmoil deepens in Pakistan over delay in election result
Authorities struggled to explain a delay in announcing the result of the election, leading to accusations that the authorities were suppressing a tide in favor of jailed opposition leader Imran Khan.
Tension was building in Pakistan Friday as authorities struggled to explain a delay in announcing the result of the national election, leading to accusations that the authorities were suppressing a tide of votes in favor of jailed opposition leader Imran Khan.
Thursday’s election pitched Khan’s passionate support against the followers of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. But many in the country saw Khan’s actual opponent as the military, with whom he fell out during his time as prime minister, and which is believed to be backing Sharif this time around.
The perception that this has been an unusually unfair election is dealing a heavy blow to Pakistan’s hesitant journey toward democracy, which has often been disrupted by periods of military rule.
“There is a discrepancy between the thinking of the voter and those who control power in Pakistan," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, author of a book on the military’s role in Pakistani politics. “That discrepancy will be a major cause of instability in the future."
Pakistan’s military has admitted to interfering in the country’s politics in the past but says it no longer does so.
The political turmoil that has gripped the country since the 2022 ousting of Khan as prime minister looks set to continue, analysts said. The uncertainty over the election outcome saw the stock exchange plunge on opening Friday.
The likely result is normally clear by midnight on election day, as television channels broadcast completed but unofficial counts from polling stations around the country. Unofficial early results had raised the possibility of a wave for Khan, but counting appeared first to slow and then stop, deepening alarm in his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party that results were being tampered with.
As of 10 a.m. local time on Friday, the Election Commission’s final deadline to receive results from election officers, just 26 of 265 seats had been announced officially.
The wins trickling in officially so far appear evenly split between the three main parties. Candidates from Khan’s party had to run as independents, and Khan himself was barred from running. If that holds, a coalition government led by Sharif’s party could yet emerge, political analysts said.
The authorities blamed communications problems for the slow announcement of results, though the government itself had switched off mobile-phone signals as voting started Thursday morning. Officials had said before the election that tabulation of the result didn’t depend on internet or mobile-phone service.
The election had already been delayed by months. The government said the delay was due to the need to take into account population changes from a new census. Opponents of the government said the delays were an attempt to gain time to lessen support for Khan.
Once the election was called, a series of hurdles were put in his party’s way. A Supreme Court ruling that barred Khan’s party candidates from using its well-known cricket-bat symbol on ballots sowed confusion among voters. The week before the election, Khan—who has been in jail since May—was convicted in three separate cases and sentenced to 14 years for corruption in the severest of the verdicts.
Thousands of Khan’s party members and supporters remain in jail after a crackdown that followed its protests over his arrest last year, the party says. The government says those held have carried out acts of vandalism of government property and insurrection against the state.
The hobbling of Khan’s party had led to widespread predictions of a fourth term for Sharif, who returned from exile in October and saw his two corruption convictions overturned before the polls. But partial results from incomplete counting in each parliamentary seat indicated Khan’s party may have done much better than expected.
“This is a kind of silent rejection of the military-dominated approach," said Rizvi.
For decades, the military’s favored candidate has won the country’s elections. Yet Pakistan has a young population and younger adults tend to support Khan, surveys show. Two-thirds of the population is aged below 30.
“Let everyone understand that Imran Khan lives in people’s hearts and no form or severity of state oppression can change that," said Raoof Hasan, a senior member of Khan’s party.
The mobile-phone signal, which the government switched off citing the danger of terrorist attacks, wasn’t fully restored until about 12 hours after polls closed at 5 p.m. local time.
“The protocols, in ensuring safe custody of both personnel and ballots, are elaborate which consumed significant time," said the Interior Ministry.
In the early hours of Friday, the Election Commission had blamed “internet problems" for the delay in the result. By then, Khan’s party declared victory based on unofficial partial results.
Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N party said it remains confident that it will form the government.
“Premature and biased speculations must be avoided as we await the official, complete results," said Ishaq Dar, a senior member of Sharif’s party and the former finance minister.
At that 2018 election, in which the military was believed to have backed Khan’s successful bid for power, the Election Commission’s vote-counting computer system went down for hours, in what many believed was an attempt at manipulating the outcome. The commission said at the time that the outage was because of a technical fault.
