Islamabad: Official results show cricket star Imran Khan won in Pakistan’s polls but he will have to seek out allies to form a coalition government.
After a tediously slow count, Pakistan election officials Friday announced Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party won 109 of the 269 seats being contested in the National Assembly.
The election Wednesday gave his nearest rival, Shahbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League 63 seats. Sharif who heads the party of jailed ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif has rejected the results charging widespread fraud and manipulation.
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Khan declared his victory on Thursday and dismissed the allegations of fraud calling it the most transparent election in Pakistan’s history.
Third place went to the left of center Pakistan People’s party with 39 seats. Results from 20 seats were still being counted.
Khan’s party also appears to succeeded in wresting control of the local assembly in Pakistan’s biggest province, Punjab, from the Sharifs, according to reports.
Punjab is home to more than half of Pakistan’s 208 million people and been the power base of the Sharif family for more than three decades.
Pakistan’s election monitoring body and a team from the European Union were scheduled to deliver their assessments of the conduct of the election on Friday.
