Police fired teargas to disperse supporters of Imran Khan as protests broke out across Pakistan amid allegations of widespread vote-rigging targeting the former prime minister’s political party and other nationalist groups in the general election, Ednews reports citing The Guardian.
The results of the election, which took place on Thursday, gave a surprise first place to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which won the most seats despite facing a stringent crackdown by the country’s powerful military establishment.
But with no clear majority winner, the country remained in a state of turmoil as several parties claimed they would be forming a government, and protests shut down swathes of the country.
An unprecedented wave of popularity won PTI-affiliated candidates more than 90 parliamentary seats but it is not enough to form a majority government. Khan’s party claims that the real number of seats it won is more than 150 and has alleged systematic fraud in the counting and recording of the votes. It is challenging dozens of the results in the courts.