Pakistan election updates: Deal-making ahead; Khan, Sharif claim win

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We will be closing the live blog soon. Here’s a review of the day’s main events.

• Independent candidates are well ahead with 100 seats, according to the latest tally posted on the election commission’s website, with PMLN in second place with 73 seats. Most of the independent candidates are backed by Imran Khan’s PTI.
• Results are still not in for nine of the 265 seats contested in the election.
• PTI interim chief Gohar Ali Khan says the party will try to form a government as it is “by far the largest political party in the National Assembly”.
• The PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said there cannot be a formation of a federal government, as well as in Punjab and Balochistan provinces, without his party.
• NetBlocks has reported a nationwide disruption of social media platform X. The PTI has called the interruption “absolutely shameful”.

Pakistan Muslim League member Mohammed Zubair says questions raised about the conduct of the election were “serious and valid”.

“Whether it was absolutely transparent, I don’t think anyone can claim that,” he told Al Jazeera.

Zubair said the lack of an electoral symbol for PTI, its iconic cricket bat, put Imran Khan’s party at a disadvantage during the polls, compared with other political entities that did have the privilege of having one.

“In the case of Pakistan, it is extremely important [to have an electoral symbol] because a large segment of the population is not even educated enough to read. And they need the symbols to identify them [the parties] to clearly cast their vote,” the PMLN member and former governor of the province of Sindh added.

While the Free and Fair Election Network gave the Election Commission of Pakistan a generally positive assessment for how it conducted polls, it says delays in announcing results “overshadowed an otherwise orderly election”, raising questions about the legitimacy of the outcome.

“In addition, the caretaker government’s suspension of cellular and internet services on election day – regardless of the security reasons –undermined years of parliamentary efforts to reform the election results management process,” it added in its preliminary report.

Shakib Ahmed, a supporter of Nawaz Sharif, says he is not happy with what is happening in the country with respect to election conduct.

“The people know everything that is going on. Nothing is hidden. Everything that is happening now, it’s total cheating,” the Lahore resident told Al Jazeera, adding that he supports Sharif because businesses did well under his rule.

Thursday’s elections were marred by violence by armed groups and a widely criticised suspension of mobile phone services also prompted accusations of “political engineering”. The delay in election results on Friday also raised eyebrows.

Supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party are staging a protest rally in Lahore, amid claims the election result delay is allowing authorities to rig the vote-counting.

The chairman of PTI, Gohar Ali Khan, is very confident that his party will be in the national parliament as well as in the province of Punjab, where they are claiming to have a majority. They have also swept the polls in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

However, most of their candidates who declared victory were later declared to have lost the election. That, of course, is going to the courts and the PTI is confident that the courts will be on their side because there’s evidence of mass rigging, including videos from Karachi of candidates stamping the ballot papers themselves.

The PTI is claiming that they have a two-thirds majority but we have to see what happens in the next 24 to 48 hours. Their other option is to join a much smaller party, the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen, which is a Shia party but very close to Imran Khan.

It’s 7:30pm (14:30 GMT) in Pakistan.

Here is a recap of events so far:

• Results are still not in for 10 of the 265 seats contested in the election, some 48 hours after the polls closed.
• A split mandate has emerged among the big three political powers, and the big question now rests on who will be able to form a government.
• The PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said there cannot be a formation of a federal government, as well as in Punjab and Balochistan provinces, without his party.
• PTI supporters are protesting outside a temporary election commission office in Peshawar amid claims the election is being tampered with.
• NetBlocks has reported a nationwide disruption of social media platform X. The PTI has called the interruption “absolutely shameful”.

This past week’s elections in Pakistan were meant to be a formality, the outcome – a win for the PMLN – predetermined by the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus.

Despite Pakistan’s powerful military attempting to manage the narrative and meddle with politics, Imran Khan’s PTI had an unexpected pull with the people.

Watch Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post here:

The PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said there cannot be a formation of a federal government, as well as in Punjab and Balochistan provinces, without his party.

“We don’t know the whole count nor have independents announced their decisions,” he told Geo News. “No government will be able to solve the public’s problems without addressing the political toxicity,” added the former foreign minister.

“The central executive committee of PPP had named me as the PM candidate but if we have to change that another meeting needs to be called and we will decide on how to move forward.”

Al Jazeera’s investigative documentary programme People & Power began to follow Imran Khan for a film before he was jailed in August last year.

With exclusive access, this new documentary looks at the events that led to Khan and his party being sidelined.

Watch it below:

The PTI has criticised the nationwide disruption of X, calling it “absolutely shameful”, as social media users said the social media platform was only accessible via VPN.

“After closing mobile services in Pakistan during election day, they have no[w] blocked X in Pakistan because PTI was exposing the rigging!!” the party alleged.

This is absolutely shameful. After closing mobile services in Pakistan during election day, they have no blocked X in Pakistan because PTI was exposing the rigging!! #عوامی_رائے_کا_احترام_کرو https://t.co/q9IZnTiuu5

— PTI (@PTIofficial) February 10, 2024