Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar defended the delay in election results on Monday, citing disruptions in mobile services due to security threats as a hindrance to the vote-counting process.
During a post-election press conference, Kakar, whose government was appointed to oversee the country until an elected set-up is established, emphasized that the delay was not indicative of rigging but a necessary response to security concerns and terrorist threats.
Several political parties, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), expressed dissatisfaction with the delayed results, alleging potential rigging.
Despite more than three days passing since the election, complete results are still pending for one seat out of 264 constituencies. In response to the delay, PTI and JI conducted countrywide elections, with the threat of further demonstrations.
Kakar compared the election result delays to instances in Sweden and Indonesia, questioning whether their elections were considered rigged. He highlighted the complexity of the electoral process in Pakistan, with 240 million people and 92,000 polling stations, emphasizing that such a process naturally takes time.
The prime minister provided statistics, stating that the result-gathering process in 2024 took 36 hours, an improvement from 66 hours in 2018, though the official Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) deadline was approximately nine hours.
Addressing foreign concerns, Kakar dismissed the initial assessments of friendly countries, urging them to base their positions on verified information rather than social media narratives. He asserted that any investigation into events leading up to the elections would be conducted according to Pakistani law and not at the behest of foreign governments.
Kakar criticized foreign nations, including the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union, for commenting on Pakistan’s domestic affairs, noting that these countries also face challenges in their elections, which Pakistan does not comment on. He emphasized that the demand of a PTI representative holds more significance for him than the combined demands of the US, UK, and EU.
