Written by Patrick JacksonBBC news
EPAVote counting is underway in Pakistan after Thursday's general election marred by a mobile phone service outage and violent riots.
Results are taking a long time to come in, and election officials have warned local authorities to speed up the process.
The party of disqualified and jailed former prime minister Imran Khan claims the delay is a sign of voter fraud.
Unofficial results from TV channels suggest that Mr Khan's allies are in the lead.
Khan, who was jailed last year on corruption charges, was barred from running in Thursday's general election, forcing his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to field an independent candidate.
They are referring to another former prime minister, Nawaz Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote two years ago and replaced by his younger brother, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Party (PML-N) leader Shehbaz. It was in opposition to Sharif's party.
Some 128 million people were registered to vote, almost half of them under the age of 35. More than 5,000 candidates (of which only 313 were women) competed for 266 directly elected seats in the 336-member parliament.
Millions of people have been hit hard by the country's economic hardship, which was made worse by the devastating floods of 2022. Inflation is skyrocketing and people are struggling to pay their bills. Violence is also on the rise.
Reuters points out that forecast results are unusually slow to come out. In previous elections, it was clearer which party was in the lead by midnight local time (7:00 p.m. Japan time) on voting day.
Zafar Iqbal, special secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan, said in a speech after the declaration of the first official results for the constituency that the delay was due to “internet issues”.
Despite the delays, PTI leaders say they are on the road to victory based on an early return, with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, announcing that his Pakistan People's Party ( He said the early results of the PPP were “very encouraging”.
EPAEarlier, the government said mobile phone service had been cut in an attack aimed at disrupting voting, and the military said at least nine people were killed.
The Wi-Fi network appeared to still be working, but both call and data services were disconnected just 10 minutes before voting began Thursday. Many voters in Lahore told the BBC that they were unable to book taxis to vote due to internet outages, while others were able to chat with other family members to arrange a time to go to vote. Some people said it wasn't there. station.
PTI called the internet shutdown a “despicable act” as voters struggled to find polling stations, and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also criticized the shutdown, calling for “immediate” restoration of services. .
The country has shut down internet services in the past to control the flow of information, but a shutdown of this scale is unprecedented, especially during an election period.
Pakistan has a history of militant attacks, but there have been only isolated incidents of violence since polling day. In the worst case, four police officers were killed in a car bomb attack in Dera Ismail Khan in the north.
At least 28 people killed in two separate bomb attacks on candidates' offices in Balochistan on wednesday.
PML-N and PPP were considered the two major parties going to the polls. Khan's PTI was banned from using the cricket bat symbol on all its candidates, making it even more difficult to select candidates.
The move forced PTI-backed candidates who were running as independents to use other symbols instead, such as a calculator, an electric heater, and a dice. Election symbols play an important role in a country where more than 40% of people are illiterate.
The PTI has also used other tactics to prevent candidates from campaigning and winning seats, including imprisoning PTI members and supporters and banning them from holding rallies, effectively forcing them underground. It is claimed that
Imran Khan was sentenced in three separate cases in five days last week and has been sentenced to at least 14 years in prison. PTI alleges interference by Pakistan's powerful military, which Khan is said to have fallen out with before being ousted and imprisoned.
However, people were able to vote for PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, who had begun serving a prison sentence for corruption at the time of the last election.
Sharif, who was ousted in a military coup in 1999 and had his third term as prime minister terminated in 2017, recently returned from self-imposed exile.
At the end of last year, his lifetime ban from holding office was revoked and his criminal record expunged, allowing him to run for a record fourth term.
EPA