Sharif Declares Victory in Landmark Pak Polls
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SUBSCRIPTION SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2013 RAJAB 2, 1434 AH www.kuwaittimes.net Mubarak Joy, disbelief Lampard Wigan stun in fresh trial as relatives breaks record City in over protester embrace rescued as Chelsea Cup final deaths B’desh worker triumph shocker 8Sharif11 declares20 victory20 Max 40º Min 24º in landmark Pak polls High Tide 02:07 & 12:25 Khan’s party concedes defeat • Outgoing PM loses seat Low Tide 07:14 & 20:10 40 PAGES NO: 15806 150 FILS LAHORE: Nawaz Sharif declared victory for his centre-right party in Pakistan’s landmark elections yesterday, as unofficial partial results put him on course to win a historic third term as premier. The result represented a remarkable comeback for a man who was deposed as premier in a 1999 military coup and came after millions of people defied polling day attacks that left 24 dead to participate in the high-turnout vote. Flanked by his close family, Sharif gave a victory speech to hundreds of jubilant supporters who shouted “prime minister Nawaz Sharif” at his centre-right Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party headquarters in Lahore. According to the unofficial, partial results it appeared that no single party would win a simple majority of 172 seats in the national assembly, raising the prospect of protracted talks to form a coalition government. Sharif struck a conciliatory tone following a high-voltage campaign that saw him clash with his main rival, cricket star Imran Khan, whose promises of reform and ending corrup- tion struck a chord with mid- dle-class and youth voters. “I appeal for all parties to come to the table and sit with me and solve the country’s prob- lems,” Sharif said. Khan’s party late yesterday conceded defeat to PML-N, a senior party leader said. “They have emerged as the largest Nawaz Sharif party. I want to congratulate the party,” Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf party leader Assad Omar told private Geo TV channel. Earlier in the evening, both Sharif and Khan won seats they had contested in. The outgoing centre-left PPP ran a lacklustre campaign, with its chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari too young to run and hounded by security threats. The party suffered fur- REYHANLI, Turkey: A woman raises her arms and shouts as she stands on the site where car bombs exploded near the town hall in this city just a few kilome- ther humiliation when its outgoing prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, lost his seat in Rawalpindi to relative unknown Raja tres from the main border crossing into Syria yesterday. — AFP Javed Ikhlas by a crushing margin of more than 55,000 votes. An election commission spokesman said turnout was more than 50 percent and expected to reach up to 60 percent, Dozens dead in Turkey blasts which would make it the highest since 1977. More than 86 mil- lion people were eligible to vote for the 342-member national ISTANBUL: At least 43 people were killed and 100 injured February. sowed panic among residents in Reyhanli, a town of about assembly and four provincial assemblies in Khyber yesterday when two explosive-laden cars blew up in a Rescuers were hunting for possible survivors buried 60,000 people, leading to tensions between youths and Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan. Queues formed small Turkish town near the Syrian border, as Ankara underneath the rubble of buildings destroyed by the Syrian refugees living locally and forcing police to fire into outside polling stations in Pakistan’s main cities where people swiftly pointed the finger at Syria. In the wake of the blasts in the town of Reyhanli, just a few kilometres from the air to disperse the crowd. Later yesterday, a third blast spoke enthusiastically about exercising their democratic right bombing, the deadliest attack in Turkey since the begin- the main border crossing into Syria. Over a dozen ambu- occurred nearby but this turned out to be an exploding and voting for change, although some expressed nervousness ning of the conflict in neighbouring Syria, the deputy lances and several air ambulances rushed to the scene to fuel tank, unrelated to the attacks, Guler said. about security. prime minister suggested President Bashar Al-Assad’s tend to the victims, NTV television said, adding that the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, on a visit to Voting in Pakistan’s financial hub Karachi was marred by government may have had a hand in the blast. “With their town hall had suffered major damage. A number of cars Berlin, said it was “not a coincidence” that these bombings allegations of rigging from rival parties, and the election com- secret services and armed groups, they are certainly one were also completely wrecked in the attacks which occurred as international diplomatic efforts to solve the mission ordered a re-vote in more than 30 polling stations in of the usual suspects to instigate and carry out such an caused a power cut in the area around Reyhanli, accord- Syrian crisis were intensifying. “It is not a coincidence that one constituency over accusations of ballot stuffing. Taleban outrageous plot,” Bulent Arinc told Turkish NTV television. ing to local media. this should happen in a period where there is an accelera- bombers targeted an ANP candidate, killing 11 other people, Stressing that an investigation had only just begun, Arinc Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the regional gov- tion of efforts on Syria in the whole world,” he told reporters. including a small child, and wounding around 40, police said. recalled that Turkish authorities already held Syrian secret ernor had been sent to the town “to put the necessary It was too early however to make a clear judgement about Another person was killed and three wounded when a low- services responsible for a similar attack that killed 17 in security measures in place” following the attack. The attack the attack, he warned. — Agencies (See Page 7) intensity bomb exploded in a bus elsewhere in the city. Gunmen shot dead 10 people in the restive southwest province of Balochistan, where turnout was low, while two PAGE PAGE people were killed and 11 wounded when a remote-con- World grapples with Astronauts spacewalk trolled bomb exploded outside a polling station in a Peshawar suburb. Police said five paramilitary soldiers in the west of rise in cyber crime to fix ammonia leak Karachi were wounded by a suicide-bomber on an explosive- laden motorbike. — AFP ‘Dead’ woman returns Iran quake to life after delivery kills child Doctors hail ‘miracle’ TEHRAN: A strong earthquake of 6.2 magnitude hit KUWAIT: Farwaniya Hospital yesterday breathing. southern Iran early yesterday, killing one child and announced its doctors performed a successful “Declaring her clinically dead, she was injuring at least 20 others in remote, mountainous vil- perimortem caesarean section on a clinically immediately rushed to be operated on to save lages, state television reported. The US Geological dead woman with no pulse or respiratory the baby, where doctors managed to revive Survey registered the quake at 0208 GMT, measured at activity, delivering a healthy baby and reviv- her heart too,” Zobi said, noting that a healthy 85 km southeast of the town of Minab, located in the ing the mother. Farwaniya Hospital Manager 3.1-kg boy was born simultaneously with his southern Hormuzgan province and off the Strait of Dr Hmoud Al-Zobi said a 36-year-old Filipina mother’s resuscitation. “This is a scientific mir- Hormuz. The quake was registered at a depth of 36.44 who was nine months pregnant was hospital- acle at all levels”, beamed Zobi. “As soon as the km, the USGS said. A local emergency official said a TEHRAN: Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani waves to the ized at 3:30 am on Friday in a critical condition woman was checked and declared clinically two-year-old died of serious injuries. “The child passed media as he registers his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election at with extremely high blood pressure. He said dead, the maternity division of the hospital away on route to hospital,” Mohammad Shekari was the woman suffered a cardiac arrest while was put on alert for a caesarean,” said Dr quoted by the ISNA news agency. Iran’s top quake res- the election headquarters of the interior ministry yesterday. — AP being examined in the casualty department Mohammad Hassan, who supervised the cue operations official, Mahmoud Mozafar, said at least after she coughed and spit blood. Her heart operation. “The woman and her baby are now 20 people had been injured. then stopped beating and she stopped in stable condition,” he affirmed. — KUNA Iran sits astride several major fault lines and is prone Heavyweights heat up to frequent earthquakes, some of which have been dev- astating. Head of Iran’s National Institute for Iran presidential race Oceanography Vahid Chegini said yesterday’s quake was unlikely to spark a tsunami in the Gulf or the Sea of TEHRAN: The race for Iran’s highest elected whose two-term presidency has left the Oman. “The chances of a tsunami because of today’s office was revitalised yesterdsy when former Islamic republic isolated internationally, while quake are remote as the quake was inland,” Chegini told president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and top the ailing economy struggles to cope with the Mehr news agency. Mozafar, who heads Iran’s Red nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili officially regis- international sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear Crescent rescue corps, said rescue teams were dis- tered for the June 14 election. Rafsanjani, who ambitions. Also yesterday, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s patched to Hormuzgan’s remote area hit by the quake.