Pakistani political bigwigs discuss government formation after elections present no clear winner

ISLAMABAD: Top leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) met late Friday to discuss formation of a new government after Thursday’s national election failed to present a clear winner.

Pakistan faces days of political horse-trading after the final few election results released Saturday showed no clear majority, but a strong performance by independent candidates backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.

A slow counting process showed independents had won at least 99 seats, PML-N took 71 and the PPP snapped up 53 seats, with minor parties taking the rest. Fifteen seats of the 266-member National Assembly have yet to be announced.

Late Friday, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari met with the PML-N president in the eastern city of Lahore, local and state media widely reported.

“Both sides exchanged views about formation of forthcoming government in the country,” the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported. “It was agreed in the meeting that in order to achieve political and economic stability in the country, both parties should work together.”

The development came hours after Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said it had “absolutely no interest” in an offer by prime ministerial hopeful Nawaz Sharif to form a coalition government after his party did not win enough seats in Thursday’s vote to rule alone.

Ahead of the vote, Sharif was seen as a frontrunner in the election due to what was widely believed to be the backing of the army that had smoothed the way for his return to Pakistan after four years in self-imposed exile to lead his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in national polls. Both deny this.

Thursday’s vote and Sharif’s announcement on Friday were the culmination of an especially contentious election season in which allegations of military meddling took center-stage, casting a shadow over a historic event that marked only the country’s third-ever democratic transition of power. The army, which has ruled for over three decades of Pakistan’s history since independence in 1947, strongly denies interfering in political affairs.

In his speech on Friday, Sharif said he had appointed his brother Shehbaz Sharif, also a former prime minister, to meet with leaders from other parties, including the PPP, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, to discuss a coalition government. He did not name the PTI.

Despite the temptation to join parties with brighter prospects, the PTI-backed candidates have repeatedly said they will not join the mainstream parties but return into the fold of Khan’s party once it wins back its bat symbol, of which it was stripped ahead of the elections. The party had lost its symbol because the election commission said it did not hold intra-party elections, a legal requirement to run in polls as a party, forcing all its candidates to run as independents, each with a distinct symbol.

Khan, who was convicted last week of treason, graft and having an un-Islamic marriage in three separate trials, claimed victory in the election in an AI-generated video released by his party.

“I congratulate you all on winning the 2024 elections. I strongly believed in you all, that you would go out to vote,” Khan is credited as saying in the AI video shared early Saturday on his X profile — the fourth his party has produced.

Khan’s PTI defied a months-long crackdown that crippled campaigning and forced candidates to run as independents in Thursday’s vote, but their showing stunned observers.

The PPP, whose popularity is largely limited to its Sindh heartland, also did better than expected in Thursday’s vote.

In April 2022, the PML-N and the PPP joined forces with minor parties to boot Khan from office after his PTI won a slender majority in the 2018 election.

The former international cricketer then waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the military-led establishment, which originally backed his rise to power.

He continues to face around 200 cases brought against him since being ousted.