In 1992, after 22 months on the margins of cricket, including a brief spell of retirement, Imran Khan led Pakistan to an unlikely World Cup victory. In 2018, after 22 years on the political margins, Imran Khan has captained his Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) to an equally spectacular election victory.

It’s been quite a story for the charismatic sportsman, playboy and politician.

The widespread perception that he was the ‘favourite son’ of the Pakistani military, and had been carefully promoted to replace the military’s bête noire, Nawaz Sharif, did not dim the lustre of his convincing victory — with 109 of 269 contested seats in the National Assembly against 63 seats for his nearest rivals, ie, the Sharif clan's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).

The Bhutto family’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won only 39 seats — 38 have gone to independents and smaller parties, and results are still awaited — as of the time of writing — for 20.

This makes it clear that, although Pakistan's Election Commission — after two days of frustratingly slow vote-counting because of a breakdown in the electronic tabulation system — on Friday officially declared Imran Khan's party the winner, thus capping Pakistan's historic third consecutive election of a civilian government — he did not (and cannot) win an outright majority in the National Assembly and must form a coalition.

Obviously this cannot be with the now-Shahbaz Sharif-led Muslim League, which Imran targeted almost viciously in the last two elections, raising the charges of financial malfeasance, that led to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s ouster by the Supreme Court in 2017. With Sharif and his daughter Maryam in prison, his party is unlikely to have any truck with the man who tormented him.

An alliance with the PPP will push Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party over the top in the National Assembly, but it seems unlikely that the Bhuttos will consent to play junior partner to the former cricket star. Nor will Imran — having run as the anti-establishment candidate who decried both the Bhuttos and Nawaz as corrupt — be inclined to reach out to them if he has a choice.

If PTI and PPP cannot come to a meeting of the minds, over the next several days Khan will need to find allies among the smaller parti

Source: https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/imran-khan-pakistan-general-elections-army