ISLAMABAD/LAHORE, PAKISTAN — Preliminary official results of Pakistan’s parliamentary polls were slowly coming in Friday after an unusually long delay and allegations they were being manipulated in favor of military-backed parties.
The vote was held Thursday amid the nationwide suspension of mobile phone and internet services and sporadic violence, fueling doubts about results and credibility concerns about an already controversial election.
The Election Commission of Pakistan announced the first few results early Friday, 12 hours after the polling across the country of about 241 million people ended. The commission announced only 24% of the results by late afternoon.
These results showed that a group of independent candidates, supported by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, performed better than expected despite being targeted by a state crackdown before the election. The contest was for the 266-seat National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.
The PTI-associated candidates were in a neck-to-neck race with those of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PML-N, led by three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, viewed as the powerful military’s favorite.
The Pakistan Peoples Party, headed by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, was lagging behind in third place.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Gohar Khan, acting PTI chairman, claimed his party was leading in more than 150 seats but that “attempts are being made to change the results.”
PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb claimed her party was in a “strong” position and would be able to form a government in Islamabad.
Based on local constituency counts, unofficial overnight tallies from Pakistani media outlets showed PTI-backed candidates leading races nationwide. In some cases, they were ahead by 30,000 to 50,000 votes. However, according to early official results released on Friday, they were either lagging behind or lost the race by a small margin.
The change in results was blamed on the delay in announcing what PTI alleged were manipulated results.
“The die is cast. If the final results show anything other than a PTI victory, PTI will reject it as a rigged result, and understandably so: Its early gains led to a long delay in announcing final results. The military, intent on denying power to PTI, intervened in the process,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at Wilson Center in Washington.
The election commission blamed the delay in processing the results on an “internet issue,” while the Interior Ministry defended the election day suspension of mobile phone and internet services, as “a result of preventive measures taken to ensure foolproof security” of the vote.
The services were reinstated Friday morning. The ministry cited deadly bombings in parts of Pakistan on and in the run-up to the polls for suspending the nationwide communication networks.
The suspension of phone and internet services sparked widespread allegations of an attempt by Pakistan’s military-backed interim government to rig the polls, mainly to prevent candidates loyal to Khan’s party from gaining an upper hand.
“We are also concerned about the steps that were taken to restrict freedom of expression, specifically around internet and cell phone use,” Vedant Patel, the U.S. State Department principal deputy spokesperson, told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
Pakistan has nearly 190 million cellular subscribers, including 128 million using mobile broadband services. The suspension of service prevented many voters from accessing the election commission’s data system to retrieve polling station locations and other details.
Journalists with mainstream Pakistani television channels said they could not promptly report rigging incidents and other irregularities from the field throughout the day because of the suspension.
Analysts say whoever wins the election will serve a public deeply disappointed in the political system, has little faith in the electoral process, and is extremely worried about the nation’s economic survival.
A military-backed crackdown on the PTI has left many disappointed in this democratic exercise.
“I came out thinking that maybe my vote will improve something for this country and for us,” said Faiza Tariq, a first-time female voter in the eastern city of Lahore.
Fazal-Ur-Rehman was among those who did not vote, citing a lack of trust in the process.
“It doesn’t matter if I vote or not. Those who are supposed to come in power will come in power,” he said.
Nazward Atta, a Pakistani living abroad, said she returned only to vote to fight the alleged unfairness.
“We just want to change the fate of Pakistan and the future of Pakistan,” she said.
Other voters, like Anam Khan, criticized the disruption of communication services.
“Why? Is there a war going on here? Do they want to keep people from posting videos on social media? People can do that later, God willing,” she said.
The Pakistani government deployed more than 650,000 army, paramilitary and police personnel to provide security for tens of thousands of polling stations across the world’s fifth most populous country, with an estimated population of 241 million.
Khan a central figure
Khan, the 71-year-old popular politician, has been convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for highly disputed corruption and other charges in the lead-up to the vote.
The cricket hero-turned-political leader’s PTI has been subjected to a monthslong nationwide clampdown, in which hundreds of workers and candidates were arrested without charges and released only after quitting the party or withdrawing from the election.
“Despite being in jail, Khan remains a central figure in the election. He retains a large base that will want to vote for the independent candidates sponsored by his party,” Kugelman told VOA.
“But it appears the state is creating an enabling environment for rigging with its suspension of mobile services. This threatens to deny many Pakistanis the right to vote for who they choose, casting doubt on the government’s insistence that this election will be free and fair,” Kugelman said.
More than 5,000 candidates were contesting for 266 general seats in the 342-member National Assembly. About 12,600 candidates were running for assembly seats in Pakistan’s four provinces.
The U.S.-based Gallup polling company found in a survey on the eve of the elections that more than two-thirds of Pakistanis “lack confidence in the honesty of their elections.”
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