LAHORE: After failure to win an outright majority to form a government in the country’s largest province, Punjab, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have focused all their energies on winning over independents and other political parties to reach the magical number to clinch the slot of Punjab chief minister.
Both the rival parties fell short of the required number of seats in the provincial legislature to form a government on their own. The PML-N emerged as the single largest party with 127 seats while the PTI has clinched 123 seats through direct elections. However, a total of 149 seats are required to have dominance in the provincial assembly.
Both the parties have started head to head efforts for support of successful independent candidates for forming government in Punjab.
Besides PML-N, PTI and independent candidates, the other key players in the battle ground include PML-Q with 7 seats, PPP with 6 seats while BAP, Functional League and PAR has one seat each.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had announced final results of all the constituencies of the national and provincial assemblies, more than 56 hours after the conclusion of voting for the 2018 General Elections in the country.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party has won 116 of the 270 National Assembly seats, emerging as the largest political party in the country. The PML-N grabbed 64 seats, while the PPP is in third place with 43 National Assembly seats.
Similarly, Mutahida Majlis Amal (MMA) secured 12 seats and Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Balochistan Natioanl Party, Mutahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, and Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) has secured 4, 03, 06, and 04 seats respectively.
Awami National Party (ANP) has won one seat, Awami Muslim League (AML), Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaniyat and Jamhoori Wattan Party (JWP) have also grabbed one NA seat each.
Fourteen independent candidates have also remained successful in their constituencies. They are likely to play an important role in formation of the federal government.
On July 25, millions of Pakistanis voted to elect a new government and prime minister in a peaceful elections held in free, fair and transparent manner.
Around 800,000 police and military forces were stationed at more than 85,000 polling stations across the country as the voting took place.
A day earlier, PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif met with PPP leader Makhdoom Ahmed Mehmood in Lahore to discuss a coalition government in the province.
