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Imran Khan has hit out at his political opponents as they move towards an alliance that would block his party from power in Pakistan following its stunning victory in elections last week.
The jailed former prime minister insisted his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party would not form an alliance with the country’s dynastic parties, his sister told the Financial Times after visiting him in prison near Islamabad on Tuesday.
The rival parties lacked a mandate to rule after the vote was marred by allegations of vote rigging, Aleema Khan quoted her brother as saying.
“He said: ‘There’s no moral ground for them to make a government after having stolen other people’s seats’,” she said.
Thursday’s election results stunned Pakistan, with many analysts having written off the PTI’s chances after a crackdown on Khan’s party orchestrated by the powerful military. The wildly popular leader was himself ineligible to stand for election after being jailed last year, while thousands of party members and supporters had also been detained.
Independent candidates, mostly backing the PTI after it was formally barred from the race, won 101 of 265 seats and the party claims it would have secured about 80 more were it not for vote-rigging. It has challenged the results in court.
The Pakistan Muslim League-N of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, which won 75 seats, and the Pakistan People’s party of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of slain leader Benazir Bhutto, have been in talks to form a ruling coalition and secure power.
Those efforts cleared an important hurdle on Tuesday when Zardari said the PPP, which won 54 seats, would support Sharif’s chosen candidate for prime minister, resolving a sticking point in the negotiations.
Zardari criticised the PTI’s refusal to negotiate with rivals, accusing it of exacerbating Pakistan’s instability.
People “voted for you to resolve their problems”, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper quoted the PPP leader as saying. “A political force must listen to others . . . When they don’t do that, it damages the country.”
Khan and his allies have ruled out an alliance with the PML-N and PPP and with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the fourth-largest group in parliament. The PML-N, PPP and MQM together governed Pakistan following Khan’s ouster as prime minister in 2022.
“He was very clear,” Aleema Khan said. “He said we’ll have no alliances with these three parties . . . He said that they’ve stolen our vote.”
“What he has instructed was: ‘The party needs to get their seats back’,” she said. “He says: ‘Go to the courts, go to the Election Commission. Get your mandate back’.”
Pakistani authorities have defended the conduct of the polls and denied allegations of wrongdoing, though both the US and EU have called for investigations into alleged irregularities.
Ayaz Amir, a PTI backer who stood unsuccessfully in one of the disputed constituencies, said the mooted coalition would struggle to survive under pressure from Khan loyalists.
“It will be an inept, chaotic government,” Amir said. “After the elections the PTI will be in parliament, it will be a strong opposition. It will be the elephant in the room.”
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