Pakistan parties ‘stealing election mandate’ as coalition formed without Imran Khan

Pakistan’s two most powerful political parties have finalised a deal to form a coalition government, weeks after they were both beaten in a general election by independent candidates backed by Imran Khan’s opposition party.

The agreement between the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will result in a government similar in make-up to the one that ousted Mr Khan as prime minister in 2022, with Shehbaz Sharif reinstalled as prime minister.

PML-N won 79 seats in the 8 February election and PPP took 54, each falling well short of the 133 needed for an outright majority and trailing the 92 seats won by independents backed by Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

PTI has accused the two legacy parties, which were seen as having the support of the powerful military establishment, of stealing Mr Khan’s mandate and of taking part in widespread election rigging in their favour.

PPP chair Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced during a joint press conference held at midnight at Zardari House that the PML–N and PPP collectively possessed enough seats to establish a federal government.

“The Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz now have complete numbers, and we are in the position to form the next government,” Mr Bhutto Zardari said alongside top leaders from both the parties.

PML–N president Mr Sharif has been put forward as the nominee for the position of prime minister, Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported. PPP’s Asif Ali Zardari is set to become the president following a vote by MPs in the coming weeks.

“The coalition’s aim is to address the country’s economic crisis,” Mr Bhutto Zardari said.

Mr Sharif pledged “collective action to tackle economic and other challenges”.

During the press conference on Tuesday, Mr Sharif claimed that the authorities had invited PTI to establish a government but that the party could not secure the necessary seats to do so. PTI had earlier ruled out the idea of forming a coalition with any of the other major parties after the election.

Mr Sharif said PML–N and its allied parties would have been prepared to sit on the opposition benches if PTI had managed to form its government.

PTI, meanwhile, continued to contest the results of an election marred by nationwide protests, rigging allegations and internet restrictions. Social networking site X, previously known as Twitter, became available to users in Pakistan only late on Tuesday night after being inaccessible since Saturday. The government has yet to comment on the cause of the disruption.

Asked by The Independent about the formation of the new government, Taimur Khan Jhagra, PTI’s former finance minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said during a press briefing that “given what PDM-1 [the Pakistan Democratic Movement] achieved, I think people shouldn’t keep their hopes high”.

PDM was a coalition of at least 11 political parties in Pakistan that came together in order to oust the then prime minister Mr Khan. The current coalition is being called “PDM 2.0”.

Mr Jhagra continued: “They know they have not just eroded but destroyed their legitimacy. The sort of reform that is required in terms of the next IMF program, I am sure they are going to get nightmares [about] what is going to happen to their vote bank if they try and do that.”

He emphasised that the “rest of the country is getting nightmares about Ishaq Dar being the finance minister again. So we are still in for interesting times.” Mr Dar has served four terms as finance minister of Pakistan since the 1990s, three of them in Sharif administrations.

Mr Jhagra described this month’s vote as the most rigged election in the history of Pakistan. He said that the polls had been “amateurishly rigged”.

“Results were falsified in nine constituencies through forgery in Peshawar” alone, he stated. He presented Form 45 paperwork – initial counts from individual polling stations – from constituencies whose results he claimed had been falsified.

PTI also demanded a “judicial commission” to look at rigging in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

It comes after a high-ranking official in Pakistan admitted tampering with the country’s elections after the vote ended inconclusively amid accusations of fraud. Liaqat Ali Chattha, the commissioner of Rawalpindi city in Punjab, announced on Saturday that he would surrender to the police and resign from his role.

Pakistan’s election commission dismissed Mr Chattha’s claims of widespread rigging, but stated in a press release that it would investigate the matter. The electoral authority said it had given no directives to Mr Chattha regarding a “change in the election results”.