Imran Khan's party takes shock lead in Pakistan election

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Candidates loyal to imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan stormed to a shock lead in Pakistan’s election results count on Friday, defying a military-backed campaign of arrests and harassment to mount an unexpected bid for power in the country of 240mn.

Analysts had expected Khan’s popular Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, which in the months before the election appeared to have been crushed in the crackdown, to have little chance in Thursday’s parliamentary election.

But with four-fifths of constituency results reported by Friday evening, independent candidates mostly representing the PTI — which was formally barred from running its own nominees — had won 91 seats, according to Pakistan’s Election Commission.

The Pakistan Muslim League-N party of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, previously favourite to emerge as the largest party, had won 62 seats. The Pakistan People’s party of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, had 50 seats.

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A total of 265 seats were being contested, after voting in one constituency was postponed following the killing of a candidate last week. A further 70 parliamentary seats are chosen indirectly.

“There was unprecedented turnout,” Raoof Hasan, a senior PTI member, told journalists on Friday. The former prime minister’s opponents “misread Khan’s resilience, his resolve, his determination . . . They misread his popularity.”

Even Mushahid Hussain, a senator for PML-N, wrote on social media site X early on Friday that the result appeared to be “the biggest election upset in Pakistan’s political history”.

Yet any PTI path back to power remains long and uncertain. Results were delayed for hours following the polls, which the PTI claimed allowed officials to rig the count and reduce the number of seats it won.

The party has vowed to challenge the results in court and form a majority government, but analysts expect other parties to have opportunities to form a ruling coalition in the coming days.

“The PTI-backed independents have performed much better than anyone’s expectations,” said Bilal Gilani, executive director of pollster Gallup Pakistan. “They’ve overcome the curbs on their political association through the unconstitutional, illegal means by the civilian and military establishment.”

Even if the PTI was unable to form the next government, Gilani said the result would be a challenge to the military-linked establishment’s traditional hold on political power in Pakistan. “They had to resort to everything and despite that they don’t have a result of their choice at all,” he said.

The results, which followed a widely criticised shutdown of mobile networks on polling day, threatened to further polarise Pakistan at a difficult time for the nuclear-armed nation.

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Khan, a former cricket star and populist, has been in jail under corruption charges since last year and was barred from contesting the election. Thousands of PTI supporters have been detained and the party’s candidates were largely unable to openly campaign.

The UN’s human rights body this week criticised what it said was a “pattern of harassment” against the PTI, while Amnesty International called Thursday’s internet shutdown “reckless” and “a blunt attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly”.

Pakistan’s caretaker government defended the integrity of the polls, denying military interference and saying the mobile network shutdown was necessary for security.

The uncertainty and prospect of further political conflict unnerved investors, triggering a sharp fall in prices of Pakistan’s international bonds on Friday. A dollar bond maturing in 2031 was trading at 65 cents, down from 68 cents on Thursday, according to Bloomberg data.

The new government’s first priorities include addressing an economic crisis and a surge in Islamist militancy. About 40 people were killed in a spate of attacks this week, including about a dozen on Thursday.

Inflation in Pakistan hit nearly 30 per cent in December, while a $3bn IMF support package that helped the country avert default last year will end in April, forcing the new government to return for new funds, in exchange for which it will need to make painful economic reforms.

Sharif, who returned to Pakistan last year after four years of self-imposed exile from corruption charges, told journalists on Thursday that only the Pakistan Muslim League-N party could resolve the country’s crises. “If you are to solve the problems of Pakistan, one party ought to get a majority,” he said. “The ruling structure must not depend on anyone else.”

The leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N party had been facing a lifetime ban from office under the conviction, until the Supreme Court overturned it last month.

Many voters, particularly young people swept up by Khan’s promises for a “new Pakistan”, were dismayed by the prospect of another term under the Sharif dynasty — Nawaz’s brother Shehbaz served as prime minister last year.

“Ninety per cent of young people are with Imran Khan, but they’re scared,” said Sanya Amir, a 23-year-old student, outside a polling booth in Islamabad. “We’ve tried Nawaz Sharif three times. It’s time for Pakistan to try out something new.”

Additional reporting by Tommy Stubbington in London