Nawaz Sharif wins Pakistani Elections

ISLAMABAD – From very early on, it was clear that former exiled politician Nawaz Sharif, the leader of Pakistan’s muslim league leader had been victorious in the country’s general elections and would be named prime minister for the third time. This election also saw the end of the traditional party dominance by the Pakistan People’s Part and the PML-N. The PML-N did not receive a two-thirds majority and must now form a coalition government. Mr. Sharif’s main rival leading up to the election was former cricket star Imran Khan, whose rival campaign drew in large crowds with a mandate that directed the urban middle-classes and young voters and led a popular campaign against drone attacks.  Yet Mr. Khan managed to win in only three cities. Mr.Khan is however, set to form a government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which boarders Afghanistan.

Despite calls of vote rigging plaguing the election results, Mr.Sharif has securely marked himself as the country’s most successful politician. He led the country 14 years ago from 1990 to 1993, and from 1997 to 1999 , during which time he built the country’s first motorway,  before being outsted in 1999 in a military coup and exiled to Saudi Arabia for high-jacking and terrorism charges.

In his mandate , Mr. Sharif promised to end corruption in state-owned enterprise, launch a bullet train, transform the economy and called for peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban. Mr. Sharif said in a speech to his party: “We forgive anyone who has abused us along the way…and we have not cursed anyone. We want to get Pakistan out of trouble. We have a programme to change the state of Pakistan. We must make a decision to change this country….to all other parties, I say come and sit at the table.”

Whilst voting was a mainly peaceful process at most of the country’s 70,000 stations, the Taliban stated that it would disrupt the proceedings of the elections, targeting those parties it claimed were non-islamic. Violence was high, Taliban managed to kill around 130 people in 8 weeks with more than 30 people were killed on election day, with attacks targeting voters and politician, yet despite this, voter turnout was its highest since 1977 with  a record 60% of people turned out to vote, resisting the pressure from the Taliban. Now for the first time, the country that for so long has been ruled by the military,  a civilian government will hand over to another civilian government.

Image Courtesy: electioncell2013.com