The party of Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister, Imran Khan, used artificial intelligence to post an online post-election speech by Khan.
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif changed tack Friday and said he would seek to form a coalition government after his party trailed independent candidates backed by his imprisoned rival, Imran Khan, in parliamentary election results.
Sharif told supporters he was sending his brother and former premier, Shehbaz Sharif, to meet the leaders of other parties and invite them to join a coalition.
Sharif spoke after results showed candidates backed by Khan, also a former prime minister, leading in the election, a surprise given claims by Khan’s supporters and a national rights body that the balloting was manipulated against him.
A former cricket star turned Islamist politician with a significant grassroots following, Khan was disqualified from running in Thursday’s election because of criminal convictions. He contends his sentences and a slew of legal cases pending against him were politically motivated.
Sharif had gruffly rejected the idea of a coalition, telling reporters after casting his vote Thursday that he wanted a single party running Pakistan for a full five-year term.
But on Friday he acknowledged, “we don’t have enough of a majority to form a government without the support of others and we invite allies to join the coalition so we can make joint efforts to pull Pakistan out of its problems.”
“I don’t want to fight with those who are in the mood for fighting,” he told supporters in Lahore. “We will have to sit together to settle all matters.”
Khan’s party’s candidates were forced to run as independents after they were barred from using the party symbol — a cricket bat — to help illiterate voters find them on ballots.
With 90% of the 266 National Assembly results announced by the election oversight body, candidates backed by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, had won 98 seats. The Pakistan Muslim League party of three-time premier Sharif, had 67 seats.
