In a surprise, jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's party-backed independent candidates seemed to be gaining the upper hand after the results of the general elections started trickling in on Friday following unusual delays that led to allegations of rigging.

Votes are still being counted in Pakistan after Thursday's general election which was marred by allegations of rigging, sporadic violence and a countrywide mobile phone shutdown.

There were dozens of parties in the fray but the main contest was among Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), whose candidates are running as independents, former three-time premier Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Bilawal Zardari Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Pakistan authorities were moving at a snail's pace on Friday to announce the election results that in a surprising development showed disqualified ex-prime minister Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf supported independent candidates leading the show.

Khan, 71, a cricketer-turned-politician and the founding chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), is behind bars and barred from contesting.

PTI candidates are running as independents after they were not allowed to use the party symbol - a cricket bat.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) which announced results from 20 National Assembly (NA) seats on Friday, the independent candidates backed by PTI won 10 seats till now while the PML-N and Pakistan Peoples Party secured victories on five NA seats each.

But unofficial result trends being aired on the television channels showed the PTI-backed candidates having upstaged their rivals in many National and Provincial Assembly seats.

Sharif, according to unofficial results, has won his seat in Lahore.

The polling ended at 5 pm on Thursday but the first official result was announced 10 hours later at 3 am on Friday, irking many about the delay and giving fuel to the rumour mills to indulge speculation of foul play to manipulate the outcome.

PTI claimed that it won the elections while alleging that results were being delayed to rig the outcome.

In a statement on X from the PTI official handle, the party stated that it won more than 150 NA seats out of 265 open for contest as per the data received in Form 45s, which are the primary source of election results at the lowest level and show the votes for each candidate at each polling station.

A party must win 133 seats out of 265 being contested to form the next government.

“Copies of these forms have been collected by PTI candidates' polling agents, which show them winning by a large majority. According to independent reports, PTI has won well over 150 National Assembly seats & is in a solid position to form government in Federal, Punjab & KP (Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa), with a clear majority,” it stated.

“However, manipulation of the results in the late hours of the night is an utter disgrace & a brazen theft of the nation’s mandate. The people of Pakistan vehemently reject the rigged results. The world is watching,” it asserted.

In a major result from Sialkot, PTI leader Usman Dar’s mother, who contested the elections for an NA seat there, won against PML-N stalwart Khawaja Asif.

In another statement, PTI alleged that its mandate was being stolen.

“Let the world know that the clear and overwhelming mandate of the people of Pakistan is being stolen. Despite unprecedented pre-poll rigging & oppression, there was a record, massive turnout on polling day,” it stated The party said that every independent candidate backed by it was winning by a landslide.

It also said that Returning Officers are now manipulating the results using Form 47, which is a summary of Form 45 from each polling station.

“Furthermore, there are reports of the polling agents getting abducted & forced to sign fake Form 45s,” it said.

It also referred to unspecified reports to claim that “PTI nominated candidates (were) losing suddenly in various constituencies now, after they had already won by a clear majority”.

In another statement, the party asked PML-N leader Sharif, who was the favourite to win as he was backed by the powerful Army, to concede defeat.

“Show some grace @NawazSharifMNS, accept the defeat! The people of Pakistan will never accept you. This is a golden opportunity to regain some credibility as a Democrat. Daylight robbery is going to be rejected massively by Pakistan!” it said in a statement on X.

Despite claims by the PTI, the ECP kept silent.

PML-N has countered the PTI claim about results and said that it was winning.

“Based on data compiled in PMLN Election Cell and results already in the public domain, PMLN has emerged as the single largest political party in the National Assembly and a clear majority party in Punjab Assembly,” according to party leader Ishaq Dar.

He also said that “premature and biased speculations" must be avoided as the country awaits the official complete results from ECP.

Separately, Geo News reported that Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz won her National Assembly seat from Lahore. Sharif's brother Shehbaz won the NA 123 seat from Lahore.

The caretaker Interior Ministry has said that it had reviewed the media and the public’s concerns about the late processing of the results and attributed it to “lack of communication, which was the outcome of mobile services suspension taken to ensure a peaceful election process.” It said the situation was now satisfactory and results would be announced accordingly.

The long delay in the announcement of results by the ECP created a lot of confusion.

Karachi, the biggest city in Pakistan, witnessed the most confusion where the Muttahida Qaumi Movement claimed it had already won 18 out of the 22 National Assembly seats from the city but this is yet to be verified.

Their rival parties the Jamaat-e-Islami and PPP both negated the MQM claim.

Earlier, PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Khan in a statement also claimed that the PTI has won over 150 National Assembly seats and is in a position to form governments in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. He urged the ECP to announce all results without any further delay. The excruciating delay in announcing the results pushed parties to the edge, with allegations of fraud being hurled along with demands for early results.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Aurangzeb said that the results are changing as they come in, stressing that preliminary results cannot be relied upon to say who's winning from a said constituency.

"We were in the lead [when] suddenly the results stopped coming in," she said while calling on the ECP to announce the results as soon as possible.

Separately, the estranged PML-N leader and ex-premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that the “people of Pakistan have spoken” and warned that any attempt to “manipulate their mandate will result in unsustainable chaos”.

“The heat of the electoral process has passed; it is time to allow the country to heal…The political leadership — Mian Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari, Imran Khan, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and others — must rise above petty politics and work together to confront the immense challenges our country is facing; they need to recognise that history is not kind to selfish politicians,” he urged.

The cellphone and internet services suspended before elections were gradually restored during the night.

In total 266 National Assembly seats were up for grabs in Thursday's election out of 336, but polling was postponed on at least one seat after a candidate was killed in a gun attack in Bajaur.

Another 60 seats are reserved for women and 10 for minorities and are allotted to the winning parties based on proportional representation.

Another 593 seats of the four provincial assemblies, out of a total 749, were also open for contest but the ECP delayed polls on at least three seats, two in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and one in Punjab, after two candidates died and one was killed.

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