Pakistan heads toward a coalition government
A coalition government formed by Nawaz Sharif and his allies in the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
ISLAMABAD — The party of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and its allies announced late Tuesday that they will jointly form a coalition government, ending the uncertainty since last week when no party won a simple majority in parliamentary elections.
The Pakistan People’s Party of former President Asif Ali Zardari, along with his younger brother Shehbaz, were present in the meeting, as was the Pakistan Muslim League.
One seat under contention in the second largest city, Lahore, was won by another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. He is the brother of Shehbaz, the man who will likely become prime minister.
Though candidates backed by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won 93 out of 265 National Assembly seats, it was not enough to form a government. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party won 75 and 54 seats respectively.
In spite of the strong showing for Khan’s party, it was not surprising to see former prime minister, and Pakistan’s most powerful security establishment preferred candidate, Khalid M Chaudhry.
The rivals of Khan went ahead with their move Tuesday despite the fact that the PTI party refused to hold talks with them. Khan, who is currently serving multiple prison terms because of convictions on charges of corruption and violating a marriage law, was disqualified from contesting the vote.
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The National Assembly will be inaugurated by Pakistan’s President before the 29th of February. The parliament will later elect the new prime minister.
“They’ve captured the entire generation,” says Waraich. The trend goes stronger in favour of Khan as demographics change. It’s the trend of greater urbanization and more young people.
There are over two dozen million young people of a median age of 22 years old in Pakistan, and this makes them skew towards Khan and his party. “The demographics of this country mean that every five years, there’s 10, 15 million new voters that are very young and very keen to express themselves,” says Zaidi, the think tank director. And overwhelmingly, they are voting for Khan.
The party is predicting that the coalition government will last less than a year. “We just need to sit back and watch the show,” says Bukhari, the senior Khan aide. In 18 months everything will be in turmoil, and Imran Khan will be once again on top.
Several Khan-backed independents reported that the initial number of votes they had received had somehow been scaled back and allow their rivals to win. By Monday, the PTI’s media team reported more than 100 candidates they backed were appealing their results.
Since the elections, Khan supporters have gathered to protest in different parts of the country, sometimes clashing with police. Mostly though, the demonstrations have been small-scale and muted.
Sharif’s party, the PLMN, angrily responded to claims of vote rigging on X. “PTI’s definition of “free and fair elections” is where they win. If the PML-N wins, it’s rigging!
“We could afford delay, but terrorist attacks that killed more than 25 people the day before the election are not,” Kakar said.
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“The lack of transparency and accountability in Pakistan has caused a storm,” says Imran Khan, the founder and columnist of the PTI think tank
The Free and Fair Election Network, which monitors elections in Pakistan, stated their observers were not allowed to observe the tabulation process in 135 of the 260 constituencies. It also reported that in 65 constituencies, the officer in charge did not allow party agents to observe the counting process. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Pakistani foreign ministry pushed back against allegations of inconsistencies, describing the vote as “free and enthusiastic.”
As claims of irregularities emerged, the State Department called for investigations into “claims of interference of fraud.” Both the United Kingdom and the European Union agreed with that.
The form shared by Sharif’s team, however, listed more votes received than voters, while 14 independents had not received any votes at all, meaning they did not even vote for themselves. “This is a completely concocted result. The founder and columnist of an Islamabad-based think tank says that someone messed up in the basics of cheating. “They didn’t even vote for themselves. His sons and daughters, mothers and wives didn’t vote for them. It’s obvious, clumsy, and incompetent.
But a document his party shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, to show that he had won, suggested discrepancies. The official paper is meant to show a tally of how many votes each candidate received in their constituency.
Within hours of the result being reported, it will be clear whether or not Pakistan has ushered in a new generation of democracy. It took the election commission more than two days to issue the results.
On the day of elections, authorities temporarily shut down disrupted mobile networks, citing security concerns. Party representatives were thrown out of some seats because they weren’t supposed to be overseeing vote counting.
Khan’s party, known as PTI, developed an AI-generated persona of Khan that repeatedly urged supporters to go to the polls and help residents familiarize themselves with the independents running in his name. “People are waiting for a glimpse of Imran Khan,” says senior aide Zulfi Bukhari, explaining why Khan’s team decided to generate an AI persona of their leader while he was behind bars.. Lawyers can give press conferences, we can send messages to them. There is a distinctive voice of Imran. He has a distinctive character, he has a distinctive look.”
The outcome was a stunning turn for the party who had been fighting a months-long battle to get back in power after Khan fell out with the military. After Khan was arrested in May, his supporters went to overrun military installations, a once unthinkable act in a country where generals have ruled for half of Pakistan’s independence.
Independent analysts concur, to some degree. “If this had been a free and fair election from the outset, then their victory would have been pretty overwhelming,” says Omar Waraich, an analyst and former Pakistan correspondent for Time. “That’s the interesting thing,” he says. “This was not a free and fair election. And yet they won. That isn’t usually the case. People have lost when something isn’t being a free and fair election.
“Pakistan’s diverse polity and pluralism will be well-represented by a unified government of all democratic forces imbibed with national purpose,” he said.
Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, appeared to approve those coalition building efforts, saying in a speech earlier on Sunday that the country needed “stable hands and a healing touch to move on from the politics of anarchy and polarization.”
“Basically this government, which has questionable legitimacy, will be largely dependent on the military for survival,” says Zahid Hussain, an author and columnist in the liberal daily Dawn.
ISLAMABAD — After compromised elections last week, a former prime minister of Pakistan is likely to resume the premiership, his party announced. Shehbaz will lead a group of parties that will form a majority in Pakistan’s parliament.
He held the job for 14 months before a caretaker government was appointed in the lead-up to elections. He was widely considered to be deeply unpopular prime minister — seen as weak, controlled by his brother behind the scenes, and unable to contain his ministers as Pakistan’s economy unraveled. He was seen as being willing to listen to the demands of the army.
Shehbaz was a no-nonsense technocrat who was the chief minister of Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab. He took over the reins of power in April 1992 after his predecessor, Imran Khan, was kicked out of the position due to falling out with the military.
