Islamabad, Pakistan — Nearly two weeks after the general elections in Pakistan, the contours of the likely new government are becoming clearer, with traditional political rivals Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) agreeing to a power-sharing formula.
Having won 75 and 54 seats in the elections respectively, the two parties, along with their smaller allies, have more than 150 members in the lower house of Pakistan’s parliament, where 134 out of a total of 266 seats are needed to form a government.
Missing in that picture is former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), despite its candidates winning 93 seats – more than any other party – while contesting the elections as independents. The party was also denied its electoral symbol, the cricket bat, weeks before the February 8 voting.
While the PTI has staked a claim to form the next government, its approach suggests that it is prepared to sit in opposition – while raising questions about the legitimacy of the elections, where it believes its mandate was stolen – said analysts. Al Jazeera reached out to several senior PTI leaders for their views on the party’s strategy, but they were unavailable.
With its leader Khan behind bars on multiple convictions, and its election campaign hit by multiple setbacks, the party stunned many analysts with the performance of its candidates in the election.
Yet, after the results, it effectively needed to join a coalition with either of the PMLN or PPP to breach the 134 mark. But Khan, in a categorical statement from jail, said the PTI would not talk to either of the two legacy political parties. Instead, the PTI has focused its energies on accusing the country’s election commission and interim government of electoral fraud in denying its candidates wins in seats where it alleges it was wronged.
The party claims it would have won as many as 180 seats without manipulation. Last week, a senior bureaucrat resigned, confessing that he had manipulated results in 13 parliamentary seats in the city of Rawalpindi.
But by refusing to even talk to any of the other major parties after the elections, the PTI has pushed itself into a corner, said political analyst Benazir Shah. “This leaves PTI with few options and barely any allies,” she told Al Jazeera.
Analyst Ahmed Ijaz, though, said that PTI’s bitter experience with coalitions when it was in power between 2018 and 2022 might be affecting its approach.
Ijaz told Al Jazeera that since Khan lost a vote of no-confidence two years ago after coalition partners deserted the PTI, its confidence in other political parties has “weakened”.
“Additionally, the entire politics of the party is based on the opposition of the two major political parties, PMLN and PPP. If this element of opposition is removed, PTI will have no reason to exist. Apart from the narrative of opposition to these political parties and their leaders, what else does PTI have?” the Islamabad-based analyst said.
Yet, with candidates having won independently, the PTI also faces challenges in terms of legal technicalities. Since it could not contest the election as a party, the PTI risks losing its quota of reserved seats in parliament, which are allocated to political parties based on proportional representation. The only way out is for its independent candidates to join another political party.
The PTI leadership had earlier announced their decision to join a Shia religious party, Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM), which won a single seat in the election. However, on February 19, the party announced it had instructed its candidates to join the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).
The PTI also nominated Omar Ayub Khan, the party’s general secretary, as its candidate for prime minister, and said it would strive to form a government, even though the numbers game appears stacked against it.
The PTI leadership nominated Omar Ayub Khan (right) as its candidate for prime minister [Sohail Shahzad/EPA]
But there’s another challenge before the PTI: according to election laws, a party needs to submit a list of nominees for reserved seats before the elections, which the SIC did not do. So it is unclear, say some legal experts, whether the SIC – even with the 93 PTI-backed independents joining it – can claim any of the reserved seats.
Legal experts also say that if any political party was allocated an election symbol for the latest polls, even if it failed to win a seat, independents are free to join that party and seek reserve seats.
However, according to election laws, a party must submit a list of nominees for reserved seats, which the SIC had not done.
“The controversy that arises here is the SIC never submitted any nomination list for reserved seats to the ECP, and law does not say anything about such a situation,” Akram Khurram, a lawyer who specialises in election laws, told Al Jazeera, referring to the Election Commission of Pakistan.
However, Khurram explained, the spirit of the law should hold precedence, as any party which has clearly won so many seats, “should be deserving of its rightful share of reserved seats”.
“My point of view is that the intention of the legislation is very clear about giving reserved seats quota to a party according to seats it won. It should not matter if it submitted a list of nominations or not. We must look at the intention and the spirit of the law,” he said.
Niloufer Siddiqui, author of the book Under the Gun: Political Parties and Violence in Pakistan, said that the PTI, by joining hands with small parties like the SIC, appears to be “covering its bases”.
“It continues to make a claim to having won the election overwhelmingly, and thereby maintains its rhetoric that the people’s mandate was stolen on February 8,” she told Al Jazeera. “It also does not want to dilute its ideological opposition to the status quo by being seen as entering an alliance with the PPP but is strategically allying with smaller parties to receive reserved seats in the parliament.”
However, Siddiqui, who is also an assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, added that with Khan in jail and the party’s “weak internal structure”, the road ahead looks bumpy.
“While PTI could be more effective as an opposition force than a governing force, given that access to Imran Khan is limited and the party’s internal organisational structure weak, it is not surprising that this objectively messy and complicated scenario is resulting in confusing policies,” she added.
Ijaz, the analyst, also added that due to Khan’s absence and a crackdown on the party’s political leadership, the PTI is struggling to retain unity within its internal affairs and prevent “divisions” within ranks.
“Due to the earlier crackdown, the party now consist of more lawyers than politicians. They bring less politicking and more aggression, which creates a difference in thinking and approach,” he said.
With the parliament session for the newly elected members expected to be called on February 29, the PTI needs to get real, said Shah.
“PTI has only one good option, to sit in the opposition for the tenure of this government. If they choose to do so, one hopes they understand that this role involves questioning the government, holding it accountable and raising matters of public importance,” she said.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
