Here are top 20 updates on Pakistan election results, 

1) The United States, Britain, and the European Union on Friday separately expressed concerns about Pakistan’s electoral process in the wake of a vote on Thursday and urged a probe into reported irregularities.

2) The U.S. and the EU both mentioned allegations of interference, including arrests of activists, and added that claims of irregularities, interference, and fraud should be fully investigated, Reuters reported. 

3) The main battle was between former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s party and candidates backed by ex-prime minister Imran Khan. However, both declared victory separately.

Also Read: Live updates on Pakistan election results

4) Khan is in jail and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has been barred from the polls. Independents, most of them backed by Khan, had won the most seats – 98 of the 245 counted by 1830 GMT – while Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party had won 69 seats.

5) Some U.S. lawmakers such as Democratic U.S. Representatives Ro Khanna and Ilhan Omar also expressed concerns, with Khanna saying “the military is interfering and rigging the result.”

6) Nawaz Sharif said that he will he will seek a coalition government after trailing jailed rival Imran Khan. However, a day earlier, he had gruffly rejected the idea of a coalition, confidently telling reporters after casting his vote that he wanted a single party running Pakistan for a full five-year term.

7) Analysts had predicted there may be no clear winner, adding to the woes of a country struggling to recover from an economic crisis while it grapples with rising militancy in a deeply polarised political environment, as per Reuters reports. 

8) The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) prepared the Election Management System (EMS) app for transmission of results from each polling station to a centralized system where the Returning Offices would complete the tabulation of all results.

9) It was expected that CEC would address a press conference, however, Special Secretary Zafar Iqbal appeared on state-run PTV just before 3 am on Friday to announce the first official results from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly.

10) According to analysts say a coalition government will struggle to tackle multiple challenges – foremost being seeking a new bailout programme from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the current arrangement expires in three weeks.

11) A coalition government “would probably be unstable, weak” and “the big loser … will be the army”, said Marvin Weinbaum, Director of Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

12) The election was expected to help resolve the crises Pakistan has been dealing with but a fractured verdict “could very well be the basis for even deeper exposure to forces which would create instability”, he said.

13) “Pakistan will be entering into more severe political and economic instability if no party emerges with a simple majority,” said Sajid Amin of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, a former adviser to the ministry of finance.

14) Pakistan is in an economic crisis, with dwindling foreign currency reserves that will be further strained by a $1 billion bond payment due in two months, while its $3 billion funding program with the International Monetary Fund expires on April 12.

15) A new government is expected to quickly take the necessary steps for example on governance of state-owned enterprises to complete the last remaining review of the current $3 billion IMF Standby Arrangement – a bridge loan that helped pull the country back from the brink of default.

16) “We expect one of the most immediate policy initiatives taken by the new government will be to negotiate a new IMF Extended Fund Facility program, which typically runs for about 3-4 years,” said Johanna Chua, global head of emerging market economics at Citi in a note to clients.

17) Political fragmentation might make it harder to push through painful and unpopular but necessary measures such as widening the tax base, analysts said.

18) Elections were held to 265 of the 266 seats in the national assembly and a political party needs 133 seats for a simple majority.

19) Elections were postponed in one national and three provincial assembly constituencies due to the deaths of contesting candidates. This includes NA-8 (Bajaur), PK-22 (Bajaur), PK-91 (Kohat), and PP-266 (Rahim Yar Khan). Voters elsewhere will cast two votes each, one for each of the two assemblies.

20) Overall, 169 seats are needed to secure a simple majority out of its total 336 seats, which include the reserved slots for women and minorities.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Published: 10 Feb 2024, 08:28 AM IST