PM-elect Imran Khan thanks nation as PTI moves closer to forming government
Islamabad, July 27 : Former Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan on Thursday claimed victory in his country's parliamentary elections, promising a new Pakistan following a vote that was marred by allegations of fraud and militant violence.
Khan, who is set to become the next Prime Minister, said in a televised address to the nation that "thanks to God, we won and we were successful".
"If God wills, we will set an example," he said.
Pakistan's election commission has not yet released official final results, but Khan has maintained a commanding lead, according to projections by many television stations. It was still unclear, however, if his Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will win a simple majority or have to form a coalition government.
Election officials said an official count confirming Pakistan's next government was expected in the early hours of Friday. More than a dozen TV channels projected, based on undisclosed methodologies, that PTI would get as many as 119 seats of the 270 national assembly seats contested. A majority of 137 seats is needed to form a government.
Before even half the votes were counted, Khan's leading rival, Shahbaz Sharif, who heads the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), the party of the jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, rejected the vote, generating fears that disgruntled losers could delay the formation of the next government.
In a tweet, he said the party had rejected the results "due to manifest and massive irregularities".
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also said he had not received any official results from any constituency where he was contesting, despite it being past midnight.
"My candidates (have been) complaining (that) polling agents have been thrown out of polling stations across the country. Inexcusable and outrageous," he tweeted.
Addressing the concerns of opposition parties regarding rigging, Imran Khan assured that "these have been the cleanest elections in Pakistan's history".
"I will fully cooperate in scrutinising as many constituencies as opposition parties want," he added.
In Punjab, with preliminary results from polling stations available with the ECP, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz is currently holding its lead on 123 provincial seats but PTI is closing in with a lead on 122 seats.
Imran Khan's party is clearly steering ahead in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with a lead on 67 seats against Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which is currently leading on nine seats.
The preliminary results from Sindh show PPP-P leading on 73 seats, followed by PTI on 22 seats.
In Balochistan, the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) is leading on 12 provincial seats, followed by the Balochistan National Party (BNP) on eight seats.
Counting is still going on at the polling stations of different constituencies.
According to PTV news, Imran Khan won all his seats he contested from including one in Islamabad against PML-N's Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. The PTI chief was pitted against former Pakistani Prime Minister Abbasi in the crucial National Assembly seat.
The voter turnout was recorded at 50-55 per cent of the nearly 106 million electorate, similar to the previous electoral contest in 2013.
A delay was reported in the transmission of election results due to the breaking down of the Election Commission of Pakistan's Results Transmission System (RTS), which is being run through a software powered by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).
Election Commission secretary Babar Yaqoob flatly denied allegations of vote count manipulation.
Shortly before Sharif spoke, state television said that just one-fifth of the votes had been counted so far -- an unusually slow count that further fuelled suspicions of rigging.
Yaqoob said the vote-counting system, which was untested, had "crashed", adding: "There is definitely no conspiracy, no one wants to influence the results".
As many as 12,570 candidates were in the electoral fray for a total of 849 seats of national and provincial assemblies in the country's 11th general election.
Millions of Pakistanis stepped out to cast their ballot in Wednesday's cliffhanger election, including women in areas where they previously stood disenfranchised.
Polling began at 8 a.m. across the country's 85,307 polling stations and continued until 6 p.m., despite calls by several major parties, including PML-N, PPP and PTI, to extend the polling time by an hour.
The election campaign was marred by violence with three candidates killed in targetted attacks in the run-up to the polls, and culminated with a suicide blast outside a polling station in Quetta which claimed at least 31 lives.
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Balendra Shah's RSP makes history, registers landmark victory in Nepal elections
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Kathmandu (PTI): Rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah's RSP is all set to form the next government in Nepal after securing sweeping victory in crucial general elections on Saturday, decimating the established parties in the politically fragile nation.
Popularly known as Balen, the 35-year-old prime ministerial candidate of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) defeated four-time prime minister KP Sharma Oli, the chair of Nepal's legacy party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) -- CPN-UML -- by a huge margin of about 50,000 votes in Jhapa-5 constituency.
Balen, 35, secured 68,348 votes against 74-year-old Oli's 18,734, the Election Commission (EC) said.
He is expected to be the next prime minister of Nepal, reflecting a public mood of rejection of established parties. The RSP, which was formed in 2022 by Ravi Lamichhane, has won 72 seats out of the 90 seats for which results were declared by 9:30 pm, according to the Election Commission (EC).
RSP's seats include a clean sweep in all 10 constituencies of Kathmandu district even as it is leading in 52 seats across the country, the EC data showed.
Legacy parties failed to convince voters for whom the major issues included fighting corruption and an end to nepotism apart from a generational change in political leadership of the Himalayan nation.
The Nepali Congress (NC) won 10 and was leading in eight seats; the CPN-(UML) won just four seats and is leading in eight; the Nepali Communist Party (NCP) won two seats and is leading in five, the Shrama Shakti Party (SSP) was leading in three seats, and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) won one seat, the EC data showed. Among the winners is one independent.
Nepal witnessed about 60 per cent voter turnout during the March 5 elections to the House of Representatives. The counting of votes started late Thursday night and as of 9:30 pm Saturday, counting was in progress in the remaining of the total 165 constituencies, the Election Commission said.
The election was being closely watched by India, which is hoping for a stable government in the politically fragile Himalayan nation to take forward the developmental partnership between the two sides.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday congratulated the people and government of Nepal for the successful conduct of elections. “It is heartening to see my Nepali sisters and brothers exercise their democratic rights so vibrantly. This historic milestone is a proud moment in Nepal's democratic journey,” Modi said in a post on X.
Modi also said that as a close friend and neighbour, India remains steadfast in its commitment to working closely with the people of Nepal and its new government to scale new heights of shared peace, progress and prosperity.
Oli, who too was projected as the PM face of the CPN-UML, wished Balen for a full five year tenure for his government in the Himalayan nation that has seen 14 governments in the last 18 years.
“Balen babu, congratulations for the victory. I wish your five year tenure be trouble free, successful and hearty congratulations,” Oli wrote in his social media post and attached a 2022 photo showing him gifting a tabla to Balen after the rapper-turned-politician won Kathmandu mayor's election as an independent.
The RSP, which projected Balendra Shah 'Balen' as its prime ministerial candidate and had organised its first election campaign in Janakpur in Madhesh, is heading towards a clean sweep of the province.
‘Balen’, as he is popularly known, projected himself as the “son of Madhesh” during the campaign, with the party launching the campaign with 'Ab ki bar Balendra Sarkar' (This time there will be Balendra’s government) tagline.
Of the total 32 seats in eight districts of Madhesh province, the RSP has won eight and is leading in 22 other constituencies, the EC said.
The party is also making a clean sweep in the Kathmandu Valley winning all 10 seats of Kathmandu district and two in Bhaktapur and two in Lalitpur district.
The party is also leading in the remaining one seat of the Kathmandu Valley with a huge margin, possibly as a result of a massive road show led by Balen in all 15 constituencies on the last day of the election campaign.
RSP chairman Lamichhane won with a huge margin from Chitwan-2 constituency, marking his third consecutive victory with 54,402 votes against his nearest rival NC's Mina Kumari Kharel, who received 14,564 votes.
According to the Election Commission, former prime minister and NCP leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda won from Rukum Purba district by securing 10,240 votes against his rival Lilamani Gautam of CPN-(UML), who got 3,462 votes.
RPP's Gyanendra Shahi won from the Jumla constituency of Karnali province by defeating his closest rival Naresh Bhandari of the NCP and became the only candidate of the pro-monarchist RPP to have secured a seat in the House of Representatives.
The election also saw 10 women candidates win, nine of them from the RSP while one from NC.
Meanwhile, the RSP is also leading in proportional voting system with the party bagging 474,266 votes followed by Nepali Congress with 160,384. The CPN (UML) has received 127,841, Nepali Communist Party 65,363, the RPP 34,154, and Shrama Shakti Party 17,437 votes till now.
Out of a total of 275 members of the Parliament, 165 are being elected through direct voting, while the remaining 110 through a proportionate method.
Around 3,400 candidates were vying for 165 seats under direct voting, and 3,135 candidates for 110 seats through proportionate voting.
The Gen Z youth, through their two-day intensified protests on September 8 and 9 last year, ousted Prime Minister Oli of the CPN-(UML), who was heading a coalition government with the backing of Nepali Congress that enjoyed nearly two-thirds majority support.
Though Balen was a popular choice to lead the interim government after Oli's ouster, he declined to lead the interim administration, saying he would prefer to contest the parliamentary election for a full term.
In January, he joined the RSP and was soon declared the party's prime ministerial candidate.
The major issues raised by Gen Z before and during the election campaign were anti-corruption, good governance, an end to nepotism, generational change in political leadership, etc.
Sunil Babu Pant, former MP and a political analyst, said, “The victory of Rastriya Swatantra Party in the March 5 elections and the expectation that Balen Shah could emerge as Nepal's next Prime Minister reflects the people's deep rooted frustration with the old political order and their hope for a new direction.”
“As Balen assumes the country's leadership, his first responsibility must be to demonstrate that corruption will not be tolerated under any circumstances,” he said.
Balen will also face a complex geopolitical challenge, Pant said, adding, “He must prove that he is not a puppet of any external power, western or otherwise. Nepal's leadership must carefully balance relations with all global actors and pursue an independent foreign policy that prioritises the national interest.”
