ISLAMABAD -- More than 10 days after Pakistan's elections, two key parties are struggling to finalize a power-sharing arrangement that would allow them to form a coalition government and fend off a large group of independent candidates backed by the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led by three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been widely expected to win the Feb. 8 polls as the preferred party of the powerful military establishment. But voters rallied behind Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was barred from contesting as a single group. PTI-backed candidates won 92 of the 265 directly contested seats in the National Assembly, while the PML-N finished with 79, according to the latest revised count.
