The 2024 Pakistani general election was marred by allegations of vote rigging and delayed results. These allegations led to widespread protests and unrest across the country. The Military Establishment was accused of rigging in favour of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N)'s leader and founder former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif to keep the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)'s leader and founder former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan out of the electoral race. Foreign media, observer groups and members of the international community, including the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union, have voiced their concerns about the fairness of the elections.
Media outlets around the world denounced the election as "fraudulent" with western media characterizing the election as already decided in favor of the military's preferred candidate Nawaz Sharif.
Vote rigging and irregularities were allegedly to have occurred through the Election Commission of Pakistan's Form 45s and Form 47s. Many activists and politicians including former Pakistani Prime Ministers Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Imran Khan have alleged that Form 45s carry the actual results while Form 47s were prepared before Form 45s.
Background The election results gave former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party a surprising first place, despite its candidates being forced to run as independents after the party was barred from directly competing in the election. However, with no party winning a clear majority, the country remained in turmoil as several parties claimed they would form the government.
Prior to the election, concerns grew over electoral irregularities as evidence suggested manipulation and political interference by the Establishment – a local euphemism for the Pakistan Army. Many observers had raised concerns about potential rigging in the elections. Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, voiced worries about the possibility of an internet shutdown on election day.
Allegations
According to Pakistani election laws, the returning officer (RO) shall compile provisional results on or before 2 a.m. the day immediately following the election day. However, for thousands of polling stations across Pakistan, results were halted, and they were not reported even 24 hours after polling ended. The results in several key constituencies were shifted towards the military-backed parties after hours of unexplained delays.
On election night, initial reports from television broadcasts indicated that PTI-backed candidates were leading in a significant number of National Assembly seats, with approximately 127 seats under their favor according to official counts. Other unofficial initial results showed Independents leading in 61 constituencies including those backed by the PTI, the PML-N leading in 43, and the PPP leading in 47. Others led in 27 seats. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) issued a statement clarifying that media reports on election results sourced from the Commission sources were inaccurate, emphasizing that no official results had been released. However, the announcement of results was then unexpectedly halted, which raised concerns. PTI officials claimed that the party was leading in at least 125 National Assembly seats and that the official results were being tampered with, with cumulative polling stations' results of their candidates not tallying with the provisional final counts being issued by result officers. Several PTI-backed candidates from three of Pakistan's four provinces, as well as Islamabad, challenged these allegedly doctored final counts in the courts.
Rehana Imtiaz Dar, the mother of Usman Dar, who was contesting for the National Assembly seat from NA-71 Sialkot-II constituency against Khawaja Asif of PML-N, stunned the country when in initially results, she defeated Asif with 131,615 to 82,615 votes. However, when the full official results were announced, Dar's total had been reduced by 31,434 votes, while Asif gained votes, ultimately leading to his declaration as the winner. Similarly, in the NA-128 Lahore-XII constituency, the PTI-backed candidate Salman Akram Raja was initially leading with 100,000 votes in 1,310 out of 1,320 polling stations on election night. However, the next day, he was trailing by 13,522 votes, and his opponent Aun Chaudhry was declared the winner instead.
Despite assurances that official results would be released early on 9 February, the ECP only started releasing results more than 15 hours after polls closed, at noon on that day, citing complications brought about by the internet outage on election day. The ECP had earlier assured that their system will not be affected by any kind of internet outage, and can work offline. The Ministry of Interior cited communication challenges for the delay in election result compilation, attributing it to security precautions. These measures, aimed at ensuring the safety of personnel and ballots, led to the extended processing time. However, the Ministry assured that the situation was now under control and expected the results to follow suit. Despite the restoration of mobile signals in the early hours of 9 February, the results still faced delays. The declaration of provisional results was not done until the late hours of 10 February, more than two days after the vote count had started. PTI supporters suspected that the shutdown of the mobile network was an attempt to disrupt the party's efforts to rally voters and document electoral fraud. The Economist called the delay in announcing the election results unusual, even by Pakistan's standards, saying that signs of tampering were "plentiful." Reportedly, when the internet returned early on 9 February, PTI-backed independent candidates across the country seemed to have a clear majority in National Assembly with 127 seats. The party pointed out significant disparities between polling station and constituency-level results, as the former did not reconcile with the latter and asserted that it could have won more seats if authorities had not interfered. Additionally, there were abrupt halts in result reporting on election night, and some candidates lost big leads overnight.
Salman Akram Raja, a PTI leader and candidate was quoted in The Guardian saying that he had pursued legal action, referring to the military's involvement by accusing them of rewriting the results. The PTI claimed that the results of at least 18 National Assembly seats were "falsely changed" by election officers, while at least six of its losing affiliated candidates launched legal appeals questioning the results, including Yasmin Rashid, who lost to Nawaz Sharif in a Lahore constituency. Jan Muhammad Buledi, a former spokesperson of the Balochistan provincial government and secretary general of the National Party was quoted in The Guardian as saying that he received a direct death threat from an army colonel after he publicly accused the military of stuffing the ballot boxes with fake votes in the constituency where he was a candidate.
During a press briefing on 13 February, PTI chair Gohar Ali Khan claimed that party had won 180 National Assembly seats, including three in Islamabad, four in Balochistan, 115 in Punjab, 16 in Sindh, and 42 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He also called for the immediate resignation of Sikandar Sultan Raja, the head of the ECP. PTI leader Hammad Azhar asserted that, based on the Form 45 issued by the ECP, the PML-N secured only 17 National Assembly seats and approximately 30-40 seats in the Punjab Assembly. The party also established an online portal to gather evidence of electoral irregularities by collecting election records from polling stations nationwide, aiming to highlight disparities between recorded votes in Form 45 and the provisional official election results in Form 47. Meanwhile, PTI-backed independent candidates from Karachi filed petitions with the Sindh High Court, contesting the provisional results for 16 National Assembly seats and over 20 Sindh Assembly seats that they alleged to have won in the city. They argued that Form 45 data showed them leading by large margins, but the Form-47 results declared candidates from Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan and the PPP as winners, alleging tampering by returning officers. The courts saw a surge in legal challenges, with candidates - notably a vast majority of them PTI-backed independents - contesting the provisional results in their respective constituencies. However the court dismissed approximately 50 of these petitions and directed the ECP to rectify any discrepancies in Forms 45 and 47.
Nawaz Sharif ran for the seat in NA-130 Lahore-XIV against jailed PTI senior leader Yasmin Rashid. According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, Sharif won the seat with 179,310 votes, while Rashid received 104,485 votes. However, Rashid's legal counsel, Ahmed Owais, alleged that the election had been rigged in Sharif's favor, claiming that 74,000 extra votes were cast to secure his victory. Rashid challenged the result in the Election Commission of Pakistan and the Lahore High Court. The civil society organization PATTAN also raised concerns about the election process, stating that NA-130 was predicted to experience significant rigging, and later claimed that the election had been manipulated with ‘historic rigging’ using pre-prepared Form 47s to favor Sharif. However, no official verdict has confirmed these allegations.
On 13 February, Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman, who won election to the Sindh Assembly representing the PS-129 Karachi Central-VIII constituency on behalf of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party relinquished his seat, saying that it was a PTI affiliate who had won and calling his position a "charity seat".
The leader of the Grand Democratic Alliance, the Pir of Pagaro VIII relinquished the two Sindh Assembly seats won by his party, citing electoral fraud. While addressing a protest sit-in against alleged election rigging, he predicted that the coalition government would collapse within 10 months. He also defended Khan against corruption allegations, stating, "If he is a thief, then we all are thieves."
During a news conference on 16 February, PML-N leaders Ataullah Tarar and Maryam Aurangzeb contended that the PTI had fabricated counterfeit Form-45s, which they claim were being circulated on social media as screenshots. The PTI, they claimed, refused to provide these forms to the ECP, citing their alleged fraudulent nature. According to a report, as of 24 February, out of the 90 National Assembly seats where the PTI claimed their candidates had won but were allegedly prevented due to rigging, only 35 independent candidates have filed cases for vote rechecking and other procedures before the ECP. However, the remaining 55 PTI-backed independents, who believe they lost due to unfair elections, have not filed cases before the ECP.