The Pakistani National Assembly yesterday swore in newly elected members in a chaotic scene as allies of jailed former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan protested what they say was a rigged election.
Lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party chanted “vote-thief” as Shehbaz Sharif, who is expected to form the government, entered the lower house of parliament with his brother Nawaz Sharif.
Both men are former prime ministers.
Photo: AP
Outgoing National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf administered the oath to incoming legislators at noon.
The house echoed with chants of “long live Sharif” when the brothers signed the register after taking their oaths of office.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party and a key ally of Shehbaz Sharif, was met with similar chants.
PTI lawmakers told reporters that they would continue their campaign against rigging in the elections in and outside parliament.
“Yes, the election has been rigged,” PTI head Gohar Ali Khan said.
PTI has called for nationwide rallies tomorrow.
The party says that results were changed in dozens of constituencies to prevent it from winning a majority, a charge the Election Commission of Pakistan denies.
After the Feb. 8 elections, observers from the Commonwealth praised election officials for holding the vote despite multiple militant attacks, but the US Department of State said that the vote was held under restrictions of freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
The EU also criticized the inability of some political actors to contest the elections.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs has fired back at such criticism, saying the vote was held in a free, fair and transparent manner.
None of the foreign observers described widespread vote-stealing.
Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party, or PML-N, and Pakistan People’s Party of former Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, emerged from the vote as the largest presence in the 336-seat National Assembly, or lower house of the parliament.
Under a power-sharing formula, Shehbaz Sharif’s party will support Zardari in next month’s presidential elections.
Outgoing Pakistani President Arif Alvi is an ally of Imran Khan and was a senior member of PTI before becoming president.
Imran Khan is serving prison terms in multiple cases and has been barred from seeking or holding office.
He has been convicted on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and contravening marriage laws in three separate verdicts, and was sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 10, 14 and seven years.
He is appealing all of the convictions.
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