Politician gives up seat he says was rigged for his win

 A Pakistan politician who won a seat in last week's controversial national elections has given it up because he says the vote was rigged in his favour.

Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman of the Jamaat-e-Islami party had been named the victor of the provincial assembly seat PS-129 in the city of Karachi.

But this week he claimed the candidate backed by Imran Khan's PTI party had secured far more votes and that their tally had been reduced.

As such he would relinquish the seat.

"If anyone wants to make us win in an illegitimate manner, we will not be accepting that," Mr Rehman said at a press conference held by his party on Monday.

He added: "Public opinion should be respected, let the winner win, let the loser lose, no one should get anything extra."


The former prime minister has been in jail since last August and his party was disqualified from the ballot, meaning that PTI candidates had to run as independents.

But despite these hurdles, voters overwhelmingly turned out across the country to cast votes in favour of his cause.

Independent candidates - a majority affiliated with the PTI - won 93 of the 265 National Assembly seats that were contested, the largest of any single party.

However the PTI argues such candidates should have won even more votes and more seats. They have alleged numerous instances of vote rigging, and welcomed the Islamist party's relinquishing of the Karachi seat this week.

Despite the PTI's success in the popular vote, Khan's rival parties - Nawaz Sharif's PML-N and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's PPP - earlier this week said they had reached a deal to form a government.

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Politician gives up seat he says was rigged for his win

  A Pakistan politician who won a seat in last week's controversial national elections has given it up because he says the vote was rigg...