Imran Khan's party demands judicial probe into alleged rigging; No consensus yet on power-sharing formula
Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's party on Sunday demanded a judicial probe into growing allegations of vote rigging even as two major political parties failed to reach a power-sharing formula to form a coalition government. Though independent candidates backed by Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party won the maximum number of seats in Parliament, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — have announced that they will form a coalition government after the February 8 elections resulted in a hung Parliament.
The post-poll alliance by the PML-N and the PPP could mean that PTI will not be able to form the next federal government, prompting Khan's party to allege that the two rival parties were trying to steal the people's mandate with the help of the powerful establishment.
Khan's beleaguered party received a major boost on Saturday when a senior government official in charge of the election process in the garrison city of Rawalpindi alleged that rigging took place and dragged the Chief Election Commissioner and the Chief Justice into it.
Buoyed by the allegations of vote rigging, the PTI on Sunday demanded a judicial probe into the manipulation of the results of the elections.
Rawalpindi Division Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chattha in a bombshell press conference on Saturday alleged that he oversaw the rigging to deprive the PTI of 13 seats which were given to losing candidates after fake votes were added to their
