ISLAMABAD: Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s aide said on Saturday his party had gained majority of parliamentary seats in Thursday’s national elections and will form government at the center, demanding the country’s election regulator to release pending results in a dozen constituencies.
As the final results continued to trickle in on Saturday afternoon, independent candidates, most of whom were loyal to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, had won 100 seats, according to official results shared by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of three-time former premier Nawaz Sharif, who is seen as the frontrunner, had secured 71 seats of the National Assembly, lower house of Pakistan parliament, followed by former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which had secured 54 parliamentary seats.
Barrister Gohar Khan, however, claimed his party had won on 170 parliamentary seats and it would form the next federal government in Pakistan.
“We say this with great confidence that right now, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has gained 170 seats of the [National Assembly],” he told reporters in Islamabad. “Of these 170 seats, 94 seats are the same that the election commission is admitting.”
Gohar alleged their victory had been turned into defeat on 22 seats, including three in Islamabad, four in Sindh and the rest in the Punjab province. He also said the PTI had won 39 out of 45 National Assembly seats in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Khan’s party has ruled in the last two tenures.
Elections were held for 265 seats in the National Assembly and a political party needs 133 seats for a simple majority.
Both the main rivals, Sharif’s party and Khan’s PTI, had separately declared their victory, raising concerns about political feuding in the country, already embroiled in a myriad of crisis.
Gohar criticized Sharif for his call on Friday to other political parties to form a coalition government.
“Yesterday, the announcement by a self-proclaimed prime minister-elect, who does not even have a majority of 50 seats, regarding the formation of government, we believe this is not a good news for democracy,” he said.
“We condemn such a premature statement.”
The Khan aide said only the PTI had majority in parliament and it would form the new government at the center. He urged the ECP to release the remaining election results before midnight or his party would hold demonstrations on Sunday in constituencies with pending results
Earlier in the day, Pakistan’s army chief also called for Pakistani political parties to form a “unified government” to help the country move on from the politics of “anarchy and polarization.”
