Pakistan Election Commission has declared PTI leader Imran Khan as the winner of the 2018 general elections. The provisional results released by the commission on Friday morning showed Khan's party had won 110 seats out of the 251 races where counting had ended. The PTI chief will now have to search for coalition partners who will help him form a government.
Imran Khan has won the NA-95 Mianwali constituency in Punjab, defeating Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Abdullah Khan by nearly 80,000 votes, ARY News reported citing unofficial results.
The National Assembly has 272 seats in total. Jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had bagged 63 seats, the results showed. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of assassinated two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was third with 42 seats.
The opposition has meanwhile cried foul and accused the army of rigging the election. They alleged that Pakistan's powerful military tilted the race in favour of Khan, and tried to erase the democratic gains made since the end of military regime in 2008.
Khan in his first speech after victory promised to investigate the claims of rigging. He also said he would like to have good relations with India and work to resolve all outstanding issues through dialogue. Mentioning Kashmir as the core issue of dispute between the two nations, Khan said that it was time the two countries sat across the table and discussed the issues of concern.
"We should sit across and resolve the issues instead of we blaming India for problems in Balochistan and they blaming us for problems in Kashmir. I can say that if you (India) will take one step forward, we will take two steps forward. The relationship between the two countries has been one-sided so far and Pakistan has been blamed for all sorts of terrorism in the world. We want friendship with India and want to resolve all issues through dialogue," asserted Khan.
The elections results brought stability to the exchange rate on the very first day after polls’ results were announced in Pakistan, said currency dealers. During the two months of the caretaker government, the local currency hit the rock bottom against the dollar.