Imran Khan's PTI short of majority in Pakistan elections, needs allies

The Election Commission of Pakistan early on Friday announced 95 per cent of the provisional results for the National and four provincial assemblies where PTI has emerged as the single largest party.

Prime Minister-in-waiting Imran Khan's tryst with destiny, however, faces a hurdle as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is still short of a full majority to form the government.

The elections were held on Wednesday. After an unprecedented slow count, the election watchdog announced that the PTI won 109 of the 269 seats contested in the National Assembly (NA).

His nearest rival, Shehbaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) won 63 seats. Sharif, who heads the party of jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, earlier rejected the results, alleging widespread fraud and manipulation.

Khan declared his victory on Thursday and dismissed the allegations of fraud, calling it the "most transparent election in Pakistan's history".

The third place went to the left of centre Pakistan People's Party (PPP) with 39 seats. Results from 20 seats were still being counted.

Khan appeared to fall short of the 137 seats needed for a majority in the National Assembly, which means he should have no problems forming a government with a handful of small coalition partners.

Khan's party also appears to have succeeded in wresting control of Pakistan's biggest province, Punjab, from the Sharifs.

Punjab is home to more than half of Pakistan's 208 million people and been the power base of the Sharif family since 1988.

As things stand, PTI has won 109 seats in NA, 118 in Punjab, 20 in Sindh, 66 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and four in Balochistan.

PML-N has bagged 63 in NA, 127 in Punjab, 0 in Sindh, five in KP and just a single seat in Balochistan.

PPP has won 42 seats in NA, 6 in Punjab, 71 in Sindh, 4 in KP and 0 in Balochistan.

The official results of 20 seats in NA, 6 in Punjab, 11 in Sindh, 2 in KP and 5 in Balochistan are yet to be announced by the ECP.