Imran Khan's Pakistan election victory claims rejected by opponents

Former international cricketer turned anti-corruption reformer Imran Khan claimed victory in Pakistan’s national elections on Thursday amid accusations of vote rigging from usurped rivals.

With official confirmation scheduled to take place on Thursday evening, Khan’s party, Pakistan Movement for Justice or PTI, is expected to fall short of an overall majority after an election campaign that has been marred by violence.

“Thanks to God, we won and we were successful,” said Khan in a television address. “If God wills, we will set an example.”

In a speech claiming victory, Khan said he wants "trade ties" with India, adding that leaders of both countries should talk to resolve the Kashmir dispute.

"I say this with conviction that it is in the interest of the subcontinent that India and Pakistan get along," he said in his speech.

He also pledged to "uplift Pakistan’s poor" and help the country’s labourers. "Corruption has been eating Pakistan like a kind of cancer. We will set an example that the law will be the same for everybody."

Khan entered politics in 1996 and, after initially struggling against a playboy image from his days as a fast-bowling all-rounder, now fashions himself as a populist anti-poverty reformer with conservative views.

He now finds himself on the brink of shouldering responsibilities such as the nation’s financial crisis, crippling debt and rampant militancy. In the short-term the completion of the election clears the way for negotiation of an urgently needed IMF loan.

Moeed Yusuf, associate vice-president of the Asia Center at the US Institute of Peace, said: “The new government is going to be in an unenviable position, and especially Imran Khan, as he is not the preferred prime minister for Pakistan’s two traditional chief patrons, China and the US.”

Khan has been accused of 'coysing up' to clerics with the funding of radical Islamic religious schools and criticising US military presence in neighbouring Afghanistan, which could spark a new conflict with a certain powerful Twitter personality.

Not surprisingly after losing a big share the vote, Khan’s leading rival Shahbaz Sharif, who heads the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), rejected the outcome of the poll, adding to concerns that disgruntled losers could delay the formation of the next government.

Pakistan’s independent human rights commission said women were blocked from voting in some regions and that there are “ample grounds” to question the legitimacy of the result.

Khan, who has the backing of Pakistan's powerful military, said: “I feel that this election has been the fairest in Pakistan’s history. If any party has any doubts, we will open the results of those constituencies up for investigation.”

There were 149 people were killed and 400 wounded when a suicide bomber struck at a campaign rally in Balochistan earlier this month, with candidate Siraj Raisani among the dead, while a blast at a polling station south-western city of Quetta killed 31 people on the day of the vote, with ISIL claiming responsibility for the attack.

Analysts at Exotix Research pointed out that an elected government can credibly commit to reforms unlike the interim government. "This should re-establish the credibility of macroeconomic management after the loose monetary and fiscal stance and the overvalued, fixed FX rate in the latter stages of the previous elected government."

Long-term, a Khan victory could be a step to better economic governance, Exotix said.

"Pakistan’s fiscal policy is captured by vested interests from the undocumented economy that do not pay tax or utility bills and gouge value out of state owned enterprises. As long as undocumented interests thrive then the only response to resulting fiscal deficits is to increase the tax rate on the documented part of the economy and increase government debt."

A coalition of the Army, an independent and interventionist Judiciary and the civilian government led by Imran Khan, "may finally arrest this vicious fiscal cycle", Exotix said. "Long-term, this is the potential change that overwhelms all other discussions around the election for investors. Otherwise, we are simply in for more of the same: buy Pakistan as it heads to the IMF and sell before the IMF loan ends."