PML-N chief, Nawaz Sharif, addresses an election rally on April 11, 2013.<\/p>\n
Pakistan’s former two-time prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has urged all political parties to help him tackle problems facing the violence-wracked country.\n<\/p>\n
Sharif made the appeal in a speech at his party headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday.\n<\/p>\n
He asked all parties “to come to the table and sit with me and solve the country’s problems.”\n<\/p>\n
“We should thank Allah that he has given PML-N [Muslim League] another chance to serve you and Pakistan,” Sharif said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sharif has declared victory for his center-right party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, in Pakistan’s general elections. <\/p>\n
Based on partial unofficial results, Sharif\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s party has secured 126 seats of the 272 directly elected seats of the National Assembly. An additional 70 seats – 60 for women and 10 for non-Muslims – will be allocated on the basis of a party\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s share in the directly elected seats.\n<\/p>\n
Former cricket star, Imran Khan\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has gained 34 seats.\n<\/p>\n
This means no single party has won a simple majority, raising the prospects for a coalition government.\n<\/p>\n
President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People Party (PPP) is in a race for the second place with the PTI, but both seem likely to win fewer than 40 seats.\n<\/p>\n
The PPP along with the Karachi-based Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP) were forced to curtail their campaigning due to militant threats.\n<\/p>\n
Officials say nearly 60 percent of the 86 million voters turned out in the elections in which about 86 million people were eligible to vote.\n<\/p>\n
Elections for a total of 577 seats in the four provincial assemblies were also held on the same day.\n<\/p>\n
The new government will face stalled economy, profound infrastructural failure, and grave threats from an emboldened Taliban.\n<\/p>\n
JR\/SS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n