Live: Elections 2024

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Pakistan has announced that his party is joining hands with the PTI for “political stability”.

“I am indebted to PTI for taking JUI-P into confidence in the current scenario and opting for an alliance for the way forward,” a JUI-P leader said at a press conference.

Meanwhile, PTI’s Gohar Khan said both the parties had affirmed to continue contacts. “We all agree that this country is ours, democracy should continue moving forward […] and we will take a step forward to improve the economy.”

He said that both the parties agreed to continue the struggle against alleged rigging in the Feb 8 polls.

The core committee of the PTI has condemned the “fresh series of enforced disappearances” of PTI-backed successful independents, claiming that some of these were also being forced to quit the party.

It also expressed concerns over the “serious threats” to the life of party chief Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi during detention at Bani Gala.

In a post on X, the party said the former first lady was being kept in detention at Imran’s Bani Gala residence “against her will”, claiming that she had been given “poisonous food”.

Global rating agency Fitch has said that the “close outcome of Pakistan’s election and resulting near-term political uncertainty may complicate the country’s efforts to secure a financing agreement with the IMF”.

In a report today, Fitch stated that a new deal was key to the country’s credit profile which “we assume one will be achieved within a few months, but an extended negotiation or failure to secure it would increase external liquidity stress and raise the probability of default”.

The report said Fitch estimated that Pakistan met less than half of its $18 billion funding plan in the first two quarters of the fiscal year ending June 2024 (FY24) “excluding routine rollovers of bilateral debt”.

“Nevertheless, this is low relative to projected external funding needs, which we expect will continue to exceed reserves for at least the next few years,” the report added.

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has said the state would defend civil servants in discharging their duties against “violent trolls” and ensure exemplary punishment to them.

“There should be no doubt about our commitment to these noble civil servants serving the State and the people of Pakistan,” he said in a statement.

“The people of Pakistan have spoken with a clear voice on February 8 and have given a split mandate. Some elements with proven track record of violent behaviour and vigilantism are now using different tricks including weaponisation of social media in blackmailing and pressurising civil servants to switch their loyalties from the State of Pakistan to the violent gang.

“This action is clear violation of the Article 5 and other articles of the Constitution and the laws of the land,” the premier added.

PTI leaders staged a protest in front of the Senate chairman’s dias during the first session of the Upper House of the Parliament post-elections.

PTI leaders chanted slogans of “unacceptable, rigged elections unacceptable”.

“The people’s mandate has been stolen, elections should be discussed in the session today,” said PTI leader Ali Zafar.

Sunni Ittehad Council Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza has announced that his party would live up to the PTI had placed in it.

“We have pledged to support Imran Khan in this difficult time. We are not those who would change with time,” he said in a post on X.

Earlier in the day, the PTI announced an alliance with the SIC and said its successful party-backed candidate would be joining the latter in National Assembly and Punjab and KP assemblies.

Two independent candidates, who emerged victorious in the February 8 general elections, have announced their allegiance with the PML-N and joined the Nawaz Sharif-led party.

According to a party statement, Muhammad Idris and Kashif Naveed Pansuta — who won the NA-12 and PP-242 constituencies, respectively — met Shehbaz Sharif and expressed full confidence in the party leadership.

PTI Senator Faisal Javed has said party chief Imran Khan will be contesting elections from Mianwali. “And God willing, he will become the prime minister of Pakistan again,” he asserted.

In an interview with Geo News, Javed said that the voter turnout on Feb 8 was “unprecedented” in the country’s history.

It must be noted that after the May 9 saga and the state crackdown on the PTI, Faisal Javed had gone into hiding. He reappeared today during a hearing at the Peshawar High Court.

Punjab caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi has said that he won’t comment on former Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha’s rigging allegations until he receives the investigation report.

“I will not say anything till I receive the report,” he said while speaking to reporters in Lahore. “Let the report and details come to me first.”

When asked to comment on the alleged rigging video doing the rounds on social media, Naqvi said he was unaware of any such video and had not seen it.

PML-N leader Saad Rafique has said no one was stopping “PTI friends” from trying to form their own government but at the same time suggested that the Imran Khan-led party should hold dialogue with others as well.

The Islamabad High Court has suspended poll result notifications issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from NA-46, NA-47 and NA-48.

The order was issued on petitions of Amir Mughal, Shoaib Shaheen and Mohammad Ali Bukhari against the notification issued by the ECP that declared their opponents Anjum Aqeel Khan, Tariq Fazal Chaudhry and Raja Khurram Shahzad Nawaz as returned candidates from the constituencies.

The petitioners contested the Feb 8 elections as PTI-backed independent candidates.

They challenged the election results before the ECP on Feb 10 and the commission issued a status quo order on the following day. However, the ECP on Feb 11, also issued the notification that declared Khan, Chaudhry and Raja as returned candidates.

During the hearing today, the court accepted the appeals and suspended the poll results.

Sunni Ittehad Council leader Hafiz Hamid Raza has said his party’s alliance with the PTI dates back nearly eight years.

“But the way PTI’s ‘bat’ was taken just a few days before elections […] I want to clarify that this is not a single-handed decision. It includes the approval of PTI leadership and Imran Khan,” he said.

Raza added that SIC and Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen were two parties that had always opposed sectarian violence and did not believe in militancy. “We have a clear stance on banned outfits,” he stated.

“I want to clarify one more thing that our support of Imran Khan and the PTI is unconditional and without any demand,” the SIC leader said.

“I want to make it clear, in black and white, that the policy will be of the PTI and Imran Khan sahib,” Raza told PTI-backed independents.

PTI leader Omer Ayub Khan has said his party wants unity in the country and therefore party-backed candidates have decided to join the Sunni Ittehad Council in the Centre and all provinces.

“This is because the quota of reserved seats lies with political parties. Coming together with the Sunni Ittehad Council would increase the PTI’s strength in the National Assembly,” he said.

Recalling the explosive rigging allegations of the former Rawalpindi commissioner, Ayub said the PTI had demanded that party-supported candidates should be declared “returned candidates”.

“We had also said that the MQM-P stole PTI’s mandate in Karachi and Hyderabad,” he claimed, adding that a similar case also persisted in Peshawar.

Ayub added that after joining the Sunni Ittehad Council, the PTI would form governments. “Our first job would be to set free Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Parvez Elahi and all our senior leadership,” he vowed.

He also lauded and thanked the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen for the support it has provided to the Imran Khan-led party.

PTI leader Barrister Gohar Ali Khan has said the party has reached a “formal agreement” with the Sunni Ittehad Council and the same would be submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan today.

“You know that there are 70 reserved seats in the National Assembly and there are 227 reserved seats in the entire country. These seats are only provided to political parties.

“Therefore, to protect our reserved seats and provide the cover to our members, we have reached a formal agreement under which all our candidates have joined the party and we will present this documentation before the ECP,” he said.

Gohar said a request will also be filed in the ECP regarding the allocation of reserved seats as per the party strength and law.

PTI leader Barrister Gohar Khan has said party-backed independents, who emerged victorious on the National Assembly and KP and Punjab assemblies seats, would join the Sunni Ittehad Council as a party.

“Our candidates have submitted their affidavits with us and with their consent today we are announcing that PTI-supported independents are joining the Sunni Ittehad Council,” he said.

Leaders of the PTI and Sunni Ittehad are holding a press conference in Islamabad.

“After elections, all the PTI-backed candidates elected from the country […] our claim is that the PTI has won 180 National Assembly seats,” PTI leader Barrister Gohar Khan said.

He said all the independent candidates contested the polls on the tickets of the PTI and were supported by the party. “Thankfully, they have won in a big number in all provinces […] of these only three have been notified yet,” he highlighted.

Barrister Gohar said that as per the law, independents were supposed to join a political party within three days.

PTI Sindh President Haleem Adil Sheikh has met a delegation of the Grand Democratic Alliance in Sindh to discuss their joint action plan of protests against alleged rigging in the February 8 polls.

In a post on Facebook, the PTI also shared a video of the said meeting.

The PTI’s Karachi secretary general Ali Ahmed Palh and MPA-elect Agha Arsalan Khan were also present during the meeting, wherein they discussed the prospects of forming a “strong alliance” to hold protests in the province.

Caretaker Information Minister Murtaza Solangi has said the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs would forward a summer to convene the National Assembly after the Election Commission of Pakistan releases the list of elected candidates.

According to the Constitution, the president is bound to convene the NA session after the official announcement of election results or issuance of its notification within 21 days.

While speaking to the media today, Solangi said an investigation committee had been formed to probe the allegations by former Rawalpindi commissioner and the ECP was taking action on the matter.

“We should trust our institutions and system,” state-run Radio Pakistan quoted him as saying.

Solangi added that the caretaker government had fulfilled its responsibility by holding the general elections.

PTI lawyer Amjad Awais — who is the counsel for Dr Yasmin Rashid — has requested the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) to take notice of alleged rigging in the February 8 polls.

‘Why is Article 184 (3) part of the Constitution if you don’t take note of matters like this?“ he asked while speaking at a press conference in Lahore.

“The government of Punjab, the police, they are all complicit in this rigging,” he said. He went on to say that the Election Commission of Pakistan “could not even do rigging properly.”

“In their hurry to make Nawaz Sharif win, they didn’t take care to make sure the tally was correct,” he said. “We can see the extent of the massive rigging that took place.”

He further said that the Returning Officer’s (RO) office of Dr Yasmin Rashid’s constituency was removed from his office by a senior police official, who then appointed another RO to “fabricate results”.

“These are stolen results upon which the government is being made. It will be an illegal and unethical government.”

PML-N leader Uzma Bukhari has said that PTI is trying to instigate mischief in Punjab. “They do not want re-elections,” she said while speaking to the media in Lahore.

“Be it Omar Ayub or Ali Amin Gandapur, they have become prime minister and chief minister themselves. Sometimes they say they are making the government and then sometimes they say they are not forming the government,” she said.

While political parties fight over who gets to form the government at the centre and each of the provinces, there are cries from various quarters of their mandate having been stolen.

But what does that mean? How many Pakistanis actually exercised their right to adult franchise on Feb 8? And where the voter turnout was less than ideal, does the winning candidate actually represent the will of the people?

In the words of political analyst Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, voter turnout is as vital a sign of the political health of a democracy as blood pressure in a human body.

Broadly speaking, a total of 60.8 million voters exercised their right to vote in Pakistan’s 12th general elections, according to an analysis conducted by Dawn.com through the published Form 47s of the 264 constituencies, whose results have been announced, on the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) website. This number was almost 6 million more compared to when 54.8 million Pakistanis cast their votes in 2018.

Besides voter turnout, the data contained in the Form 47s also shed light on at least two other key patterns — the number of rejected votes and the disparity between female and male voters in each constituency.

Read more here.

Tank District Police Officer Iftikhar Shah has told Dawn.com that during repolling in NA-43 (Tank-Dera Ismail Khan), armed assailants targeted police on duty in Gomal police station limits. He said the incident occurred in Kot Azam where repolling was going on.

The official said that police retaliated and killed “one terrorist”, adding that repolling in the area was under way.

In a post on X, incarcerated Imran Khan has alleged that fake ballot papers were being printed in Lahore at a printing press owned by PML-N leader named Ehsan.

“Even after 10 days of holding the elections, a very organised and coordinated series of rigging continues,” he said.

In a video shared with the same post, a man explains that he reached the printing press in Lahore’s Lakshmi Chowk after receiving a tip from sources.

He showed stacks of ballot papers piled on the floor and tables, which, according to him, were being printed for NA-15 Mansehra, where Nawaz Sharif lost.

He noted that only a government printing press is authorised to print ballot papers.

“We strongly reiterate our demand once again that election results as per Form 45 should be released immediately,” Imran said.

PTI will be holding a press conference today with the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

PTI leaders Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, Omar Ayub Khan and Central Information Secretary Rauf Hasan will meet with MWM leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas and Chairman of Sunni Ittehad Council Sahibzada Hamid Raza.

The meeting will be hosted at PTI’s central office at 3:30pm.

The services of social media platform X (formerly Twitter) have been restored following a brief disruption earlier today.

Dawn.com staffers were unable to access the social media platform at 11:45am even with the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

The services were back up at 12:10pm.

Repolling at six polling stations of the NA-43 (Tank-Dera Ismail Khan) constituency is currently underway, Radio Pakistan reports.

The polling will continue till five in evening without any break, the report said, adding that law enforcement personnel had been deputed to ensure security.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has notified the victory of PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur — who is likely to become the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — along with 92 other candidates, mostly PTI-backed, who were elected to the provincial assembly in Feb 8 polls.

Initially, the election watchdog issued notifications for 92 candidates that did not include Gandapur, who emerged victorious on two seats: PK-113 and NA-44 in Dera Ismail Khan. His victory notification for the KP assembly as well as the NA seat was issued separately in the evening.

The ECP issued notification of 93 candidates, including 83 PTI-backed candidates, two PPP candidates, and three JUI-F nominees besides five other independent candidates. Out of 115 KP Assembly seats, elections were not held on PK-22 in Bajaur and PK-91 in Kohat as polling was postponed after the deaths of contesting candidates.

Read more here.

Services of X (previously Twitter) reportedly face disruption for a third day.

Dawn.com staffers were unable to access the social media platform even with the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

The Supreme Court has summoned the petitioner who filed a plea seeking the Feb 8 general elections to be declared null and void due to alleged violations of democratic norms and electoral integrity.

As a three-member bench — led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa and also including Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musarrat Hilali — took up the plea, the petitioner did not appear before the court.

Subsequently, the apex court issued a notice to the petitioner, Brigadier (rtd) Ali Khan through the defence ministry and adjourned the hearing until Feb 21.

The SC noted that the petitioner had identified himself as a former brigadier and when contacted again, his phone number was found to be turned off.

“Was the application filed only for publicity? This cannot be allowed. We will not allow the SC to be used in a wrong manner,” the court observed. It further stated that the plea had been filed in the SC on February 12 but had been reported on the media beforehand.

Recalling that the notice to the petitioner could not be delivered to the stated address and contact number, the court ordered that Ali be contacted through the station house officer concerned.

DEMOCRACY in Pakistan has yet to yield significant improvements in living standards and provide a stable environment for businesses to thrive. Despite this, the recent elections saw 60.5 million Pakistanis using ballots, more than ever before in the nation’s history.

It indicates people’s profound trust in democracy and a belief, perhaps perceived irrational by many observers, that an elected government has the potential to serve the public better and advance the nation’s long-term interests. The crucial question looms: Will the new government live up to this trust and deliver on its promises?

Unfortunately, the situation is incredibly intricate, and the success hinges greatly on the competence of the new economic team in navigating these challenges. Pakistan confronts daunting economic hurdles: inflation has soared to an unprecedented rate of over 30 per cent, while economic growth remains almost stagnant if one considers the population growth rate.

All discussants on the topic unanimously agreed on the high stakes involved, recognising that the next finance minister faces the formidable task of meeting the expectations of both the public and the business community while simultaneously adhering to stringent stability targets.

Read more here.

The Supreme Court has begun hearing a private petition seeking the February 8 general elections to be declared null and void due to alleged violations of democratic norms and electoral integrity.

Filed by an individual named Ali Khan, the petition urged the court to order new elections within 30 days to be held under the direct supervision and oversight of the judiciary “to ensure fairness, transparency and accountability”.

A three-member bench — led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa and also including Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musarrat Hilali — is presiding over the hearing.

As the petitioner did not appear before the court today, the CJP asked where he was. At this, Justice Mazhar noted that Ali had requested on February 13 to withdraw his plea.

CJP Isa then ordered that the petitioner be presented before the court and instructed the relevant police station’s station house officer to ensure that Ali appeared before the court.

“Such a prank cannot be played on the Supreme Court. Bring the petitioner from wherever and present him before the court,” Justice Isa remarked, adding that the bench would hear the petition.

PTI’s Musarrat Cheema has said that the PML-N is attempting to change the election results by “fake printing” of polling material.

In a post on X, she claimed, “The reality is that Nawaz Sharif’s politics has come to an end.”

PML-N leader Khawaja Saad Rafique has said that a session of the National Assembly, which would be the first of the upcoming government, should be convened “as soon as possible”.

In a post on X, he said, “Conducting the grand national dialogue is the prime responsibility of this assembly.”

Rafique further said that state institutions should also be involved in the dialogue to “give way to each other so that Pakistan gets way”.

PPP has firmly claimed that it was in a position to form its government in Balochistan as PML-N has assured its full support to the party in the province.

“Some nationalist parties were raising hue and cry over their defeat in the polls, but despite all odds, the PPP will form government in Baloch­istan,” PPP leader Sarfaraz Bugti said in a press conference.

“Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has given us a clear message that it will be our ally in Balochistan,” he added.

Bugti said the PPP would soon finalise the process of government formation in Balochistan. He, however, said the PPP had yet to decide a candidate for the chief minister’s slot.

Read more here.