Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan called for independent MPs backed by his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party to join the Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Muslimeen party to form a government, after inconclusive elections last week.
The intervention comes after Pakistan went to the polls last week. Khan's PTI party was banned from taking part in the elections and he was barred from standing while he serves a jail sentence, but pro-Khan independents won 93 out of 266 seats contested in the National Assembly.
That gave the party more seats than those that ousted Khan from office two years ago.
The PTI media team told The National it would form an alliance with the MWM in Punjab province and on a national level, while also teaming up with the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
"Both parties are respectable parties. We had a seat adjustment with MWM and we have always maintained good relationships with Jamaat-e-Islami. So we have decided to merge with them in order to form a united government in KP and go into parliament as a merged party," PTI spokesman Zulfikar Bukhari told The National.
Khan has ruled out forming a coalition with any of the country's other major parties.
The PTI's main rival, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, secured 75 seats in the elections, the most among the country's parties.
Mr Sharif's brother, former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, president of the PML-N, said pro-Khan independents were welcome to try to form a government if they could prove they held a majority in parliament.
Pakistan's system means a simple majority can be achieved with 169 of the 336 seats in the National Assembly. Only 266 of the 336 seats are contested directly in elections – the remaining 70 are reserved, with 60 for women and 10 for religious minorities.
Those seats are allocated to political parties based on proportional representation of the 266 elected seats. Under the rules, they cannot be allocated to independent candidates.
Independent candidates can join a party up to three days after the country's Election Commission officially declares the result.
Pro-Khan independents may now seek to merge with the MWM, a party that advocates the rights of Shiites in the country, to qualify to secure a share of the reserved seats. The MWM won a single seat in the elections.
If pro-Khan independents are unable to prove they have a majority, the PML-N will lead coalition talks to form a government, Mr Sharif said.
The PML-N is holding coalition talks with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which came third with 54 seats. The two parties led the coalition that ousted Khan in 2022.
Negotiations have reportedly faltered over who would be prime minister.
"Both sides are interested to form a coalition, but there is no breakthrough so far. Both parties want the office of prime minister," a senior PML-N official told Reuters.
The party has not named its prime ministerial candidate, but officials say the choice will be between Nawaz, 74, and Shehbaz, 72, who held the post for 18 months until August last year.
Nawaz has been involved in Pakistani politics for almost five decades and twice served as prime minister in the 1990s, before returning to the post between 2013 and 2017. He was then convicted of corruption and fled the country, returning from self-exile last year before the latest elections.
Shehbaz was chief minister of Punjab for 15 years before becoming prime minister.
The PPP is led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the latest member of Pakistan's Bhutto dynasty. His mother is former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007. Her father, Zulfikar Bhutto, was a former president and prime minister of Pakistan who was executed in 1979 after a military coup.
Mr Zardari was foreign minister in Shehbaz Sharif’s government and has promoted himself as a new face for the country.
The PTI and its supporters have accused Pakistan's powerful military and political elite of conspiring against the party and supporting the PML-N.
The election last week was marred by accusations of vote rigging and a shutdown of mobile phone services, which was criticised by the PTI.
Khan and his supporters say the charges he faced were a conspiracy led by the military. The former prime minister, who is in Adiala Jail, has been sentenced to 34 years after being convicted in four cases.
He has received several sentences, the latest of which was handed down last week after a district court ruled his 2018 marriage to Bushra Bibi broke the law.
Agencies contributed to this report
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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