Pakistan elections: Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif claim the upper hand

With most of Pakistan’s general election results announced, no political force has a clear majority.

Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan claimed victory in Thursday’s vote as independent candidates linked to him have won most seats so far.

But another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, says his party has become the largest and is calling on others to join him in a coalition.

There are reports that coalition talks between Mr Sharif’s PML-N party and other groups are already underway.

The final official results are yet to be announced.

In a stark video message posted on X, which was generated with the help of AI, a message attributed to Mr Khan said his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party had won a landslide victory – opposing what he calls a crackdown on his party.

“I congratulate each and every one of you for winning the 2024 election… you have created history,” the message said.

Mr Khan is currently in prison having been convicted in what he says are politically motivated cases.

The success of the PTI-linked candidates was unexpected, with most experts agreeing that Mr Sharif – who is believed to be backed by the country’s powerful army – was the clear favourite.

But the PTI is not a recognized party after it was barred from contesting elections, so technically Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or PML-N is the largest official political group.

The political trade has begun in earnest, meaning it may still be some time before anyone can claim an outright victory.

In a speech on Friday, Mr Sharif admitted he did not have the numbers to form a government on his own. But in an address to supporters outside his party’s headquarters in the city of Lahore, he urged other candidates to join him in a coalition and said he could lead the country out of tough times.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight program on Friday, Mr Khan’s former special assistant Zulifkar Bukhari said: “Knowing Imran Khan and knowing the spirit of our political party PTI, I don’t think we will do any kind of coalition, we will form a government with any of the major parties.

“However, we will make a coalition… to be in the parliament – not as an independent, but under one flag, one party.”

And asked if Mr Khan could potentially be freed, Mr Buhari said: “I think the moment we go to the high court and the supreme court, we are extremely confident that he will be freed and many of the charges – if not all – will be rejected on legal and procedural grounds.”

The third largest party appears to be the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), led by Bilawal Bhutto, son of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007.

Burzin Waghmar, a fellow at the Center for Pakistan Studies at SOAS University of London, told the BBC the election “could prove to be one of the most divisive and dangerous this chronically unstable, episodic democracy has ever faced”.

As the results trickled in, the UK and US expressed concern about restrictions on electoral freedoms during the vote.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the UK had called on Pakistani authorities to “respect basic human rights, including free access to information and the rule of law”.

In a statement, he went on to express “regret that not all parties were officially allowed to participate in the election.”

Meanwhile, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller criticized what he described as “unlawful restrictions on freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly” during Pakistan’s election process.

It also cited “attacks on media workers” and “restrictions on access to the Internet and telecommunications services” as reasons for concern about “allegations of interference” in the process.

Many analysts said this was one of the least credible elections in Pakistan.

Voters in Lahore told the BBC that internet outages on election day meant it was not possible to book taxis to go and vote, while others said they could not coordinate when to go to polling stations with your family members.

A Home Office spokesman said the disruptions were necessary for security reasons.

Support from Pakistan’s military is seen as crucial to political success, and analysts believe Mr Sharif and his party currently have their support, despite their differences in the past.

Maya Tudor, an associate professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, said Imran Khan’s PTI leadership was “shocking” in the context of the country’s past.

“A win would be remarkable – in every other election in Pakistan’s recent history, the military’s preferred candidate has won,” Dr Tudor explained.

Nearly 128 million people were registered to vote, almost half of whom were under the age of 35. More than 5,000 candidates – of whom only 313 were women – competed for 266 directly elected seats in the 336-member National Assembly.

Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States, Maleeha Lodhi, said Pakistan “desperately” needed political stability to deal with what she described as “the worst economic crisis in its history”.

But on a hopeful note, Ms Lodhi said the voter turnout in Pakistan showed “faith in the democratic process”.