Pakistan’s former prime ministers and rivals Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan both declared victory in the election on Friday, but delays in results and militant attacks plunged the country into further political turmoil.

Sharif’s party won the most seats of any single party in Thursday’s election, but supporters of jailed Khan won the most seats overall. Khan ran as an independent rather than as part of a single bloc after his party was banned from the polls.

Sharif said his party would discuss forming a coalition government with other groups as it failed to win an outright majority on its own.

Sharif’s announcement came after more than three-quarters of the 265 seats had been declared, more than 24 hours after voting ended on Thursday, when 28 people were killed in armed attacks.

Analysts had predicted there might be no clear winner, adding to the woes of a country struggling to recover from an economic crisis while also contending with growing militancy in a deeply polarized political environment.

Results showed independents, mostly backed by Khan, winning the most seats – 98 out of 245 seats counted as of 1830 GMT.

Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) won 69 votes, while the Pakistan People’s Party led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of assassinated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, received 51 ticket.

The rest were won by smaller parties and other independents.

Sharif told a crowd of supporters gathered outside his home in the eastern city of Lahore: “After today’s election, the Pakistan Muslim League is the largest party in the country and it is our responsibility to pull this country out of the vortex.”

“Whoever has a mandate, whether it’s an independent or a political party, we respect the mandate they have,” he said. “We invite them to sit with us and help this wounded country get back on its feet.”

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party released an audio-visual message created using artificial intelligence and shared on his X social media account.

Khan, 71, usually delivers his messages verbally through his lawyers, in which he rejected claims Sharif won, congratulated his supporters on “winning” the election and urged them to celebrate and protect their votes.

“I believed that you would all come out to vote and you lived up to that trust and your high turnout shocked everyone,” the message said, adding that no one would accept Sharif’s claims because he won fewer seats and Fraud has occurred. Former cricket great Khan has been in jail since August and was convicted three times in the six days before the vote of 10 years, 14 years and seven years in cases involving state secrets, corruption and illegal marriage.

Sharif, 74, a three-time former prime minister, ended his four-year self-imposed exile in Britain late last year and contested his last election from a jail cell on corruption charges.

He was considered the frontrunner to lead the country, burying a long-standing feud with the powerful military.

Sharif said his party would prefer to win its own majority but if it fails, he will reach out to others, including former PPP president Asif Ali Zardari, as early as Sunday Negotiations began on Friday night.

The first response from one of Khan’s top aides was that PTI leaders would hold internal talks and meet Khan in prison on Saturday to discuss the outcome, Geo News reported.

There was an unusual delay in voting results, which the caretaker government attributed to the suspension of mobile phone services – a security measure ahead of the election.

Independent members are unable to form a government on their own under Pakistan’s complex electoral system, which also includes reserved seats that are allocated to parties based on their victory.

But independents can choose to join any political party after the election.

Challenges facing the Alliance

“Timely publication of the results will facilitate the smooth formation of the new government, which will reduce policy and political uncertainty,” Moody’s Investors Service said. “This is critical in a country facing very challenging macroeconomic conditions. .”

The delay in announcing the results is unusual for Pakistan. The Karachi stock index and Pakistan’s sovereign bonds fell amid uncertainty.

The main electoral battle is expected to be between Khan-backed candidates and the Muslim League-North. The People’s Party backed by Khan won the last national election. Khan believes the powerful military is behind the crackdown to bring down his party, while analysts and opponents say Sharif has the support of the generals.

The military has controlled the nuclear-armed country directly or indirectly during the 76 years of its independence from Britain, but it has insisted for years that it does not interfere in politics.

Analysts say the coalition government will grapple with multiple challenges, not the least of which is seeking a new bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when current arrangements expire in three weeks.

Marvin Weinbaum, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan studies at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the coalition government “will likely be unstable and weak” and that “the biggest loser … will be the military.”

“Because the military has really staked its reputation on its ability to conduct this vote.”

He said the election was expected to help resolve the crisis Pakistan has been grappling with, but a divisive verdict “is likely to be the basis for further exposure to forces that create instability”.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)