Pakistan’s election results show jailed cricket star and former PM Imran Khan’s backers defying the odds to win seats, even as he sits in a prison cell.
As long lines of pessimistic Pakistani voters waited to cast ballots on Thursday, many had serious doubts about the power of their votes to influence the course of events in their country as it faces major and . By Friday morning, however, results trickling in showed a much closer race than many had expected, and a much better result for the man widely seen as Pakistan’s most popular politician.
Former cricket star Imran Khan, who served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister several years ago, and his PTI party’s backers looked set to defy expectations and win a large share of the seats up for grabs in the parliament. That’s despite the fact that , and both he and his party were kept off the ballots. Khan and his backers have always claimed the myriad corruption and other charges he’s been convicted of are baseless and politically motivated.
The PTI faced a sweeping crackdown ahead of the vote, with its candidates barred from holding rallies and forced to stand as independents. Along with a cut-off of cellular service on election day, delays in vote counting, allegations of deep-fake videos falsely claiming party leaders had called for election boycotts and , the circumstances led to widespread of the parliamentary elections.No «foregone conclusion»?
As official results came in Friday, they showed something few had expected: Independent candidates backed by the PTI had taken around about 50 seats in the legislature, not far behind the roughly 70 combined seats won by the two parties seen has having the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military.
«Independents spring surprise, PTI-backed candidates defy odds,» read the headline across the front page of Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper.
