International media says PTI wins over 150 seats in general elections 2024

Rating Justification

‘The iVerify Pakistan team has checked this content and has established that it is false.

To arrive at this verdict, the iVerify Pakistan team analysed the attached video to check if it made the alleged claim.

HOW IT STARTED

On February 9, 2023, an X user, who appeared to be a PTI supporter based on her past posts, shared a post with a video of a foreign journalist with the caption: “The international media has reported this news after seeing it with its own eyes … that PTI has won more than 150 seats. Spread this news as widely as possible.”

The circulated post gained over 300,000 views and was reshared 18,000 times.

The same claim was also shared by the official X account of PTI Lahore with over 14,000 views.

The same claim was shared by many other users here, here and here.

The video was also circulated on TikTok here and here.

It was also shared on Facebook here, here and here.

METHODOLOGY

The iVerify Pakistan platform sought to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality and since it is directly related to election results, which are already controversial due to the delay in them coming out.

The video attached to the circulated posts is of Cordelia Lynch, Asia correspondent of British news outlet Sky News.

She posted this video on her official X account on Feb 9 at 12:44pm with the caption: “Fascinating dynamics in the Pakistan elections with Imran Khan’s independents leading. They say it’s a landslide victory. Official results though show a tighter race. There complaints of vote tampering.”

The video’s transcript is reproduced below:

“Well, they say that Pakistan is full of surprises. And this morning, the people of Pakistan are waking up to exactly that. The PTI, the party of Imran Khan, who remains in jail, his candidates forced to run as independents, are claiming what they say is a clear victory.

“But they are also concerned about what they claim is election rigging. Now, behind me, you can see the official results. So far, 53 seats in the National Assembly have been returned. Official results say that the independents are ahead at 18, that the party of Nawaz Sharif, the man that many believe the military wants in power, is at 17, and the People’s Party of Pakistan, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is at 16.

“So this is all very interesting because people thought it was a foregone conclusion. But the PTI says that there was a big turnout, particularly amongst youth, amongst women, and that they came out in their droves to support Imran Khan, who won’t be able to lead the party, who remains behind bars. And yet you’re seeing this groundswell of enthusiasm now.

“What does it mean for an actual result? Well, potentially, we could be looking by the end of the day at a hung parliament. I think what this board behind us does show is that Sharif is very unlikely to get a clear majority.

“But lots of complaints coming in here to the election commission about tampering with results, about the slowness in which they’ve come in. We would expect to have seen many more by this time in the morning, and yet we haven’t. So, lots to play for, (and) fascinating dynamics here. And Khan still appears to have maintained that popularity.”

Notably, Lynch did not claim that the PTI won 150 seats since she gave her video report at the point when the results of only 53 National Assembly had come in on the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) official results portal for the general elections.

ELECTIONS 2024

Lynch is one of the 37 British journalists issued visas to cover the general elections.

According to the ECP portal, 252 results have been announced out of 265 NA seats, with independent candidates leading with 100 seats followed by PML-N and PPP with 71 and 54 seats, respectively.

According to Dawn.com, out of 99 independent winning candidates, 91 candidates are PTI-backed.

Meanwhile, the PTI claims to have won 170 seats as per the Form 45s.

CONCLUSION

The iVerify Pakistan team has determined that the claim regarding foreign media reporting a PTI win over 150 seats is false.

The attached video presented as evidence for the claim did not report any such thing or even mention the number.

Evidence and References

ECP National Assembly result portal:
https://www.elections.gov.pk/national-assembly