Pakistan elections 2024 top updates: Results trickle in after unusual delay, parties allege rigging

The results of the 2024 general elections in Pakistan started trickling in on Friday (Feb 9) after much delay. In a post on X, the country's interior ministry said that a "lack of communication" led to the late processing of results.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced the results of 106 out of the 265 contested seats in the national assembly by around mid-day.

According to a report by Geo News, independent candidates, who were supportingjailed former prime minister Imran Khan won 47 seats, followed byBilawal Bhutto Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which won 24 seats, and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) had won 18 seats. The rest of the seats have been won by smaller parties.

Nawaz Sharif won in his constituency- the NA-130- by over 171,000 votes.Mainstream parties in the country including Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the PPP alleged rigging in the elections.

>Nawaz Sharif has won in the NA-130 constituency while his younger brother and former PM Shehbaz Sharif has won the PP-158 seat in Lahore with 38,642 votes, preliminary results from ECP showed. Shehbaz Sharif also emerged victorious in the NA-123 seat in Lahore with 63,953 votes.

>Imran Khan's PTI was barred from taking part in Thursday's election, and hence his supporters contested as independent candidates. Gohar Ali Khan, the PTI's current chairperson, has won the NA-10 constituency in Buner with 110,023 votes, the ECP said.

>Mainstream political parties in Pakistan apart from the PML-N have alleged rigging in the elections. In Karachi, the PPP claimed that ballot papers were snatched from electoral staff in the PS-105 constituency, Dawn reported. In Punjab, PTI-backed candidate for Sialkot Rehana Dar said the returning officer refused to give her Form 45.

>United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed concerns about the violence on election day and the temporary suspension of mobile communications services in the South Asian country.

>UN Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres expressed concern about the election violence. "As Pakistan awaits the results of the elections, the secretary-general encourages all political leaders and society segments to maintain a calm atmosphere, as well as refrain from the use of violence and any actions that could increase tensions," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

>The PTI earlier claimed that it would form governments both at the centre and in provinces. In a statement issued late Thursday, PTI chief organiser Omar Ayub Khan and PTI Parliamentary Leader in Senate Barrister Ali Zafar said that preliminary results were very encouraging for their party, showing it as convincingly leading on an overwhelming number of seats across the country.

>Despite heightened security in the run-up to the election and also the election day, incidents of violence were reported in Pakistan. Nine people, including two children, were killed on Thursday in bomb blasts, grenade attacks and shootings.

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>At least another 26 were killed on Wednesday in two explosions near electoral candidates' offices in the southwestern province of Balochistan. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for these attacks.

>As the full election results are awaited, an analyst told the news agency Reuters that no party would have a majority and a coalition government is expected. "So we are looking at what everybody has anticipated that is a coalition government, which would probably be unstable, weak," Marvin Weinbaum, the director of Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies at the Middle East Institute, said.

>"If it does, the results do come in, and it does look like the independents are the majority, the big loser won't necessarily be the PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz), it will be the army. Because the army really has staked its reputation on its ability to deliver this vote, now it hasn’t done that openly, but that is really what is involved here,” Weinbaum said.

(With inputs from agencies)