LAHORE: Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan is set to emerge victorious from Pakistan’s general elections, as unofficial early results on Wednesday night indicated he had taken the lead in a political contest marred by allegations of rigging by the main political parties.
The vote is proving to be a close fight between Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), led by jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
“God willing, PTI will emerge as the single largest party in Parliament,” said Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the party’s vice-chairman. “I congratulate Imran Khan.”
But victory in the election, which marks only the second time that power in Pakistan has been transferred from one civilian government to another, will be tempered by unprecedented allegations of voting irregularities. Leaders of all political parties other than PTI said voters were not given the required forms on time and that polling agents, party volunteers who monitor the count, had been forced out of polling stations, leaving security officials free, potentially, to tamper with the vote.
About 800,000 law-enforcement officials, including 371,388 soldiers, were deployed to protect and facilitate the vote.
PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said that his party will reject the election results over concerns of rigging.
“This is not an election, it is complete selection,” said PML-N Sen. Mushahid Hussain Sayed. “A great disservice has been done to Pakistan. This is the dirtiest election in the history of Pakistan.”
Sherry Rehman, the leader of the opposition in the upper house of Parliament and a senior leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), said the widespread reports of voting irregularities had the potential to render “the whole election null and void.”
Violence also cast a shadow over election day. At least 31 people were killed in a suicide bombing outside a polling station in the southwestern Baluchistan province. There were also clashes in all four provinces between supporters of the various parties, in which at least two people were killed.
The run-up to the election was also bloody. A suicide bomber killed 151 people, including Balochistan Awami Party candidate Siraj Raisani, at a rally in Baluchistan’s Mastung area this month. Ikramullah Gandapur, a candidate for PTI, and Haroon Bilour, who was standing for the secular Awami National Party, were assassinated in separate attacks in northwestern Pakistan.
In addition, the election has been plagued by widespread allegations that the army was working behind the scenes to skew the contest in Khan’s favor. Sharif, who was jailed on corruption charges this month, has long had tense relations with the military and accuses army chiefs of orchestrating his conviction.
But despite the threat of violence and some public disenchantment over the allegations of rigging, at least half of the country’s 106 million registered voters turned out to cast their ballots for the 272 parliamentary seats.
“A lot has been written dismissing Pakistan’s election as a sham but there are scores of women, grandparents and great grandparents queuing today to cast their vote even in the face of news of violence from Quetta,” said Fahd Humayun, a researcher at Jinnah Institute. “This is the resilience of this country and its people.”
Women in the Dir, Kohistan, and North and South Waziristan regions made history by voting for the first time. Media footage showed disabled people arriving to vote across the country, and one news channel followed the election experiences of a team of wrestlers and two grooms who left their weddings to cast ballots. A teenage girl took her mother on a motorcycle to vote for Khan, she said, because public transport was not available.
Khan, whose appeal rests mainly on a fierce anti-corruption crusade, took the lead as the unofficial results started to come in on Wednesday night. Television news projections predicted his party would win up to 115 of the 272 elected seats on offer. With PML-N trailing on just 70 seats, it seemed clear that Sharif’s election slogan, “Give Respect to the Vote,” had failed to resonate with common Pakistanis.
In Lahore, the capital of what is traditionally Sharif’s Punjab power base, Khan’s supporters danced in the streets, waving flags bearing his image, honking horns and firing celebratory gunshots.
“I voted for Imran Khan because he is not corrupt and he has never been given a chance before,” Mustafa Abbas, a web developer, said outside a polling station on Wednesday afternoon. “We know all the other candidates and parties. Now it’s time to test out Imran.”
At another polling station, Samra Aslam, 53, said she was voting for Sharif because he had brought development to the country. Sharif’s PML-N party is known for its large-scale infrastructure projects and energy projects that have reduced crippling power cuts.
“Nawaz has been dealt with unfairly just because he won’t bow before the generals,” Aslam said. “By voting for him, we are voting against this trend of victimizing political leaders.”
Even if Khan wins and faces no obstacles in forming a government, he will have to deal with a currency crisis, a record trade deficit and enduring threats from militants. For years now, he has called for less dependence on the US, but it remains to be seen how he will manage Pakistan’s stormy relationship with Washington, as well as with rivals India and Afghanistan.
The Americans will be particularly concerned about the outcome of the election, given that Khan famously said he would order the Pakistani military to shoot down American drones if he came to power, and advocated negotiations with Pakistani Taliban fighters rather than military operations against them.
There are also questions over how successfully he can work with the army, and how much he would concede to the military in policy-making.
“Imran Khan doesn’t have many friends or allies; he’s not someone who really knows how to work with people,” said Mohammad Malick, a popular political talk show host, referring to Khan’s famous stubbornness. “So he will need a lot of help from the military not just to convince smaller parties and independent candidates to help him form the government but, once in power, to push reforms and enact policy. He won’t be able to work without the military.”
If that is the case, it would only mean more political power for a military that directly ruled Pakistan for almost half its history and already has a significant role in foreign and national security policymaking.
Khan’s triumph, however, signals a victory against dynastic politics. The Sharifs have dominated Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, since the 1980s, and Nawaz Sharif has been prime minister three times. The other loser in this regard is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari of the Pakistan People's Party, whose mother and grandfather are former prime ministers.
In addition, in a landscape long closed off to disruptive, new voices, several political novices jumped into the fray during this election cycle, including social workers, lawyers, political activists and an unprecedented number of people from the transgender community. Hundreds of candidates from militant-linked groups also ran.
However, despite the violence and allegations of rigging, observers said this election could have historic repercussions for Pakistani democracy.
“When an election is believed to be unfree and unfair, knowing that the procedural aspects of the election have been carried out successfully offers little consolation,” said Kugelman. “At the same time, it’s unfair to conclude that democracy is a lost cause in Pakistan simply because it struggles to carry out a clean election. This election is a democratic milestone.”
Imran Khan takes firm lead in Pakistani election marred by violence and rigging claims
Imran Khan takes firm lead in Pakistani election marred by violence and rigging claims
- PML-N crise foul, says 'this is not an election, it is complete selection'
- PPP says reports of voting irregularities can render 'the whole election null and void'
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The regional governor counted seven Russian strikes and said casualties were still being assessed.
Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday its forces had shot down 59 Ukrainian drones overnight while the Ukrainian Air Force reported the launch of Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea, although it was not initially clear where they were headed.
Russia has accelerated its advance across eastern Ukraine in recent months, looking to secure as much territory as possible before US president-elect Donald Trump comes to power in January.
The Republican has promised to bring a swift end to the nearly three-year-long conflict, without proposing any concrete terms for a ceasefire or peace deal.
Moscow’s army claims to have seized more than 190 Ukrainian settlements this year, with Kyiv struggling to hold the line in the face of man power and ammunition shortages.
Japan’s top diplomat in China to address ‘challenges’
Beijing: Japanese foreign minister Takeshi Iwaya was due in Beijing on Wednesday for talks with counterpart Wang Yi and other top officials as Tokyo acknowledged “challenges and concerns” in ties.
The visit is Iwaya’s first to China since becoming Japan’s top diplomat earlier this year.
China and Japan are key trading partners, but increased friction over disputed territories and military spending has frayed ties in recent years.
Tensions also flared last year over Japan’s decision to begin releasing into the Pacific Ocean some of the 540 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of reactor cooling water amassed since the tsunami that led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster — an operation the UN atomic agency deemed safe.
China branded the move “selfish” and banned all Japanese seafood imports, but in September said it would “gradually resume” the trade.
China imported more than $500 million worth of seafood from Japan in 2022, according to customs data.
Iwaya told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday that “China represents one of the most important bilateral relationships for us.”
“Between Japan and China, there are various possibilities but also multiple challenges and concerns,” he said.
“Both countries possess the heavy responsibilities for the peace and stability of our region and the international community,” he added.
China’s foreign ministry said Beijing sought to “strengthen dialogue and communication” in order to “properly manage differences” with Japan.
Beijing will “strive to build a constructive and stable China-Japan relationship that meets the requirements of the new era,” spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
Japan’s brutal occupation of parts of China before and during World War II also remains a sore point, with Beijing accusing Tokyo of failing to atone for its past.
Visits by Japanese officials to the Yasukuni shrine that honors war dead — including convicted war criminals — regularly prompt anger from Beijing.
Beijing’s more assertive presence around disputed territories in the region, meanwhile, has sparked Tokyo’s ire, leading it to boost security ties with key ally the United States and other countries.
In August, a Chinese military aircraft staged the first confirmed incursion by China into Japanese airspace, followed weeks later by a Japanese warship sailing through the Taiwan Strait for the first time.
Beijing’s rare test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean in late September also drew strong protests from Tokyo, which said it had not been given advance notice.
China also in August formally indicted a Japanese man held since last year on espionage charges.
The man, an employee of the Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas, was held in March last year and placed under formal arrest in October.
Trump vows to pursue executions after Biden commutes most of federal death row
- Presidents historically have no involvement in dictating or recommending the punishments that federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, though Trump has long sought more direct control over the Justice Department’s operations
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida: President-elect Donald Trump promised on Tuesday to “vigorously pursue” capital punishment after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most people on federal death row partly to stop Trump from pushing forward their executions.
Trump criticized Biden’s decision on Monday to change the sentences of 37 of the 40 condemned people to life in prison without parole, arguing that it was senseless and insulted the families of their victims. Biden said converting their punishments to life imprisonment was consistent with the moratorium imposed on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.
“Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” he wrote on his social media site. “When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”
Presidents historically have no involvement in dictating or recommending the punishments that federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, though Trump has long sought more direct control over the Justice Department’s operations. The president-elect wrote that he would direct the department to pursue the death penalty “as soon as I am inaugurated,” but was vague on what specific actions he may take and said they would be in cases of “violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.”
He highlighted the cases of two men who were on federal death row for slaying a woman and a girl, had admitted to killing more and had their sentences commuted by Biden.
Is it a plan in motion or more rhetoric?
On the campaign trail, Trump often called for expanding the federal death penalty — including for those who kill police officers, those convicted of drug and human trafficking, and migrants who kill US citizens.
“Trump has been fairly consistent in wanting to sort of say that he thinks the death penalty is an important tool and he wants to use it,” said Douglas Berman, an expert on sentencing at Ohio State University’s law school. “But whether practically any of that can happen, either under existing law or other laws, is a heavy lift.”
Berman said Trump’s statement at this point seems to be just a response to Biden’s commutation.
“I’m inclined to think it’s still in sort of more the rhetoric phase. Just, ‘don’t worry. The new sheriff is coming. I like the death penalty,’” he said.
Most Americans have historically supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to decades of annual polling by Gallup, but support has declined over the past few decades. About half of Americans were in favor in an October poll, while roughly 7 in 10 Americans backed capital punishment for murderers in 2007.
Death row inmates are mostly sentenced by states
Before Biden’s commutation, there were 40 federal death row inmates compared with more than 2,000 who have been sentenced to death by states.
“The reality is all of these crimes are typically handled by the states,” Berman said.
A question is whether the Trump administration would try to take over some state murder cases, such as those related to drug trafficking or smuggling. He could also attempt to take cases from states that have abolished the death penalty.
Could rape now be punishable by death?
Berman said Trump’s statement, along with some recent actions by states, may present an effort to get the Supreme Court to reconsider a precedent that considers the death penalty disproportionate punishment for rape.
“That would literally take decades to unfold. It’s not something that is going to happen overnight,” Berman said.
Before one of Trump’s rallies on Aug. 20, his prepared remarks released to the media said he would announce he would ask for the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers. But Trump never delivered the line.
What were the cases highlighted by Trump?
One of the men Trump highlighted on Tuesday was ex-Marine Jorge Avila Torrez, who was sentenced to death for killing a sailor in Virginia and later pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbing of an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old girl in a suburban Chicago park several years before.
The other man, Thomas Steven Sanders, was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and slaying of a 12-year-old girl in Louisiana, days after shooting the girl’s mother in a wildlife park in Arizona. Court records show he admitted to both killings.
Some families of victims expressed anger with Biden’s decision, but the president had faced pressure from advocacy groups urging him to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. The ACLU and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops were some of the groups that applauded the decision.
Biden left three federal inmates to face execution. They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in UShistory.
Airstrikes target suspected Pakistani Taliban hideouts in Afghanistan
- The strikes were carried out in a mountainous area in Paktika province bordering Pakistan, said the officials
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Pakistan in rare airstrikes targeted multiple suspected hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban inside neighboring Afghanistan on Tuesday, dismantling a training facility and killing some insurgents, four security officials said.
The strikes were carried out in a mountainous area in Paktika province bordering Pakistan, said the officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the record. It was unclear whether the jets went deep inside Afghanistan, and how the strikes were launched.
No spokesman for Pakistan’s military was immediately available to share further details. But it was the second such attack on alleged hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban since March, when Pakistan said intelligence-based strikes took place in the border regions inside Afghanistan.
In Kabul, the Afghan Defense Ministry condemned the airstrikes by Pakistan, saying the bombing targeted civilians, including women and children.
It said that most of the victims were refugees from the Waziristan region.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers this a brutal act against all international principles and blatant aggression and strongly condemns it,” the ministry said.
Local residents said at least eight people, including women and children, were killed in the airstrikes by Pakistan. They said the death toll from the strikes may rise.
In a post on the X platform, the Afghan defense ministry said the Pakistani side should know that such unilateral measures are not a solution to any problem.
“The Islamic Emirate will not leave this cowardly act unanswered but rather considers the defense of its territory and territory to be its inalienable right.”
The strikes came hours after Mohammad Sadiq, Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan, traveled to Kabul to discuss a range of issues, including how to enhance bilateral trade, and improve ties.
Sadiq during the visit met with Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s acting interior minister, to offer his condolences over the Dec. 11 killing of his uncle Khalil Haqqani. He was the minister for refugees and repatriation who died in a suicide bombing that was claimed by a regional affiliate of the Daesh group.
Sadiq in a post on X said he also met with Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and he “held wide ranging discussions. Agreed to work together to further strengthen bilateral cooperation as well as for peace and progress in the region.”
A delegation of the pro-Taliban Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam also visited Kabul on Tuesday to convey condolences over the killing of Haqqani’s uncle.
Islamabad often claims that the Pakistani Taliban use Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan, a charge Kabul has denied.
Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security expert, said Tuesday’s airstrike “represents a clear and blunt warning to Pakistani Taliban that Pakistan will use all the available means against the terrorist outfit both inside and outside its borders.” However, it is not an indiscriminate use of force and due care was taken by Pakistan in ensuring that only the terrorist bases were hit and no civilian loss of life and property took place, he said.
The Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has emboldened the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, whose leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.
The TTP has stepped up attacks on Pakistani soldiers and police since November 2022, when it unilaterally ended a ceasefire with the government after the failure of months of talks hosted by Afghanistan’s government in Kabul. The TTP in recent months has killed and wounded dozens of soldiers in attacks inside the country.
On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis launches holy Jubilee year
- Pope had drawn an angry response from Israel at the weekend for condemning the “cruelty” of Israel’s strikes in Gaza that killed children
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis opened the “Holy Door” of St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve on Tuesday, launching the Jubilee year of Catholic celebrations set to draw more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome.
The 88-year-old pontiff, who has recently been suffering from a cold, was pushed in a wheelchair up to the huge, ornate bronze door and knocked on it, before the doors opened.
In a ceremony watched on screens by thousands of faithful outside in St. Peter’s Square, the Argentine pontiff went through the door followed by a procession, as the bells of the Vatican basilica rang out.
Over the next 12 months, Catholic pilgrims will pass through the door — which is normally bricked up — by tradition benefiting from a “plenary indulgence,” a type of forgiveness for their sins.
Pope Francis then presided over the Christmas Eve mass in St. Peter’s, where he turned once again to the victims of war.
“We think of wars, of machine-gunned children, of bombs on schools and hospitals,” he said in his homily.
The pope had drawn an angry response from Israel at the weekend for condemning the “cruelty” of Israel’s strikes in Gaza that killed children.
He was due to deliver his traditional Christmas Day blessing, Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world), at midday on Wednesday.
Some 700 security officers are being deployed around the Vatican and Rome for the Jubilee celebrations, with measures further tightened following Friday’s car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Germany.
Much of Rome has also been given a facelift in preparation, with monuments such as the Trevi Fountain and the Ponte Sant’Angelo cleaned up and roads redesigned to improve the flow of traffic.
Many residents have questioned how the Eternal City — where key sites are already overcrowded and public transport is unreliable — will cope with millions more visitors next year.
Key Jubilee projects were only finished in the last few days after months of work that turned much of the city into a building site.
Inaugurating a new road tunnel at Piazza Pia next to the Vatican on Monday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said it had taken a “little civil miracle” to get the project finished in time.
Over the course of the next few days, Holy Doors will be opened in Rome’s three major basilicas and in Catholic churches around the world.
On Thursday, Pope Francis will open a Holy Door at Rebibbia prison in Rome and preside over a mass in a show of support for the inmates.
Organized by the Church every 25 years, the Jubilee is intended as a period of reflection and penance, and is marked by a long list of cultural and religious events, from masses to exhibitions, conferences and concerts.
“It’s my first time in Rome and for me, to be here at the Vatican, I feel already blessed,” said Lisbeth Dembele, a 52-year-old French tourist visiting St. Peter’s Square earlier.
The Jubilee, whose motto this year is “Pilgrims of Hope,” is primarily aimed at the world’s almost 1.4 billion Catholics, but also aims to also reach a wider audience.
Traditions have evolved since the first such event back in 1300, launched by Pope Boniface VIII.
This year, the Vatican has provided pilgrims with online registration and multilingual phone apps to navigate events.
