Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a six-party alliance in Pakistan, initial presidential election results in Indonesia, and rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
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New Coalition Government
The Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) announced plans late Tuesday to form a coalition government following last Thursday’s parliamentary elections. Along with representatives from four other parties, the alliance will prevent former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party from securing power despite PTI-backed independents winning the most seats.
“Let’s move forward by eliminating mutual differences for the sake of the nation,” PMLN leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said.
Khan was barred from running in last week’s vote despite being the public’s more popular candidate. He is currently serving multiple prison sentences for four separate convictions—three of which were handed down a week before the election. Pakistan’s Supreme Court also banned his PTI party from running, forcing its candidates to campaign as independents. PTI-affiliated independents won 93 seats, the PMLN won 73 seats, and the PPP won 54 seats, according to official results.
Khan announced on Tuesday that his PTI-backed candidates would join the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen party, which won one parliamentary seat, and he ruled out any possibility of joining the PMLN-PPP coalition. Members of the Sharif-led alliance are “mandate thieves,” Khan said, adding that such a coalition lacks “credibility.”
The last time the PMLN and PPP aligned was in April 2022, when they ousted Khan from power via a no-confidence vote. At that time, the PMLN placed Sharif’s brother Shehbaz Sharif in power, where he ruled for 14 months until being replaced by a caretaker government. Coalition officials once again nominated Shehbaz on Tuesday to be their candidate for prime minister. Shehbaz’s first reign was widely unpopular, with many Pakistanis accusing him of being easily manipulated by Nawaz and the country’s military. Pakistan’s armed forces backed the PMLN in last Thursday’s vote.
Khan has claimed that widespread vote-rigging prevented a greater win for PTI-backed candidates. On the day of the election, Pakistani authorities temporarily shut down mobile internet access, citing security concerns, and threw out PTI-connected representatives meant to oversee vote counting.
“I warn against the misadventure of forming a government with stolen votes,” Khan said. “Such daylight robbery will not only be a disrespect to the citizens, but will also push the country’s economy further into a downward spiral.”
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What We’re Following
Claim of victory. Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto declared victory on Wednesday in the country’s presidential election despite official results not yet being announced. Unofficial results based on quick vote counts conducted by nongovernmental think tanks show Prabowo having won nearly 60 percent of the vote, with 85 percent of votes counted. If those results prove accurate, Prabowo will have secured enough votes to avoid a presidential runoff in June. His main rivals, former Govs. Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, have yet to concede defeat. Official results will likely be published in March, election authorities said.
“This victory must be a victory for all the Indonesian people,” Prabowo said.
Prabowo—whose running mate is Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the son of outgoing President Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi)—was the country’s predicted front-runner. Prabowo is the son-in-law of former dictator Suharto, the country’s second president, who was toppled in 1998. While serving as a lieutenant general in Suharto’s regime, Prabowo ordered the abduction of more than 20 pro-democracy student activists and helped lead the U.S.-backed invasion of East Timor. He was banned from entering the United States for his poor human rights record until 2020.
In recent months, however, Prabowo has rebranded himself as a “cuddly grandpa” and Jokowi’s top choice. Yet, his controversial history has prompted fears that he will push Indonesia back toward authoritarianism. In his victory speech on Wednesday, Prabowo joked about his close relationship with the former dictator, who died in 2008. “I know him quite well,” Prabowo said to a crowd of supporters. “Why are you laughing? You guys don’t believe it?”
Battling Hezbollah. A rocket attack targeting northern Israel on Wednesday killed one Israeli soldier and injured at least seven other people on an Israeli military base. No group has claimed responsibility, but the missiles appeared to come from an area of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah. In response, Israel launched an “extensive wave” of assaults on Hezbollah-linked targets that killed at least four people, including two children.
Near-daily fighting has marred the Israel-Lebanon border since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. On Monday, France proposed a truce between Israeli and Hezbollah forces to prevent the conflict from “spiraling out of control.” Hezbollah, however, refuses to negotiate a de-escalation until the war in Gaza concludes.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military ordered hundreds of people sheltering at Nasser Medical Center to evacuate on Wednesday. Located in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Nasser is the last functioning major hospital in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians have fled there in recent weeks to escape Israeli bombardments. Israel said the evacuation order did not apply to patients and staff.
Erdogan-Sisi reunion. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled to Cairo on Wednesday for his first trip to Egypt since 2012. During bilateral talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Erdogan promised to boost trade to $15 billion in the short term and reevaluate energy and defense cooperation.
The meeting represents a significant thawing of diplomatic ties, which have been strained since 2013, when then-army chief Sisi led a coup against the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president and an ally of Ankara. Turkey has long supported the Muslim Brotherhood, which Sisi’s regime considers to be a terrorist organization, and served as a safe haven for exiled Brotherhood leaders and members following Sisi’s crackdown on the group. In the last several years, though, Erdogan has sought to mend ties with Egypt and other regional players.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the two leaders also called for renewed cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas. “We will continue to cooperate and stand in solidarity with our Egyptian brothers to put an end to the bloodshed in Gaza,” Erdogan said. Egypt has hosted numerous negotiations on the conflict and oversees Gaza’s main humanitarian aid corridor in the border city of Rafah. However, the latest talks in Cairo ended without a cease-fire, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected sending another Israeli delegation to participate in further discussions, stating that “only a change in Hamas’s position will allow progress in the negotiations.”
Odds and Ends
Since the 14th century, couples, partners, and lovers of love have celebrated Valentine’s Day with grand romantic gestures. That, of course, sometimes includes a kiss. But according to a study published in the journal Science last May, the first recorded smooch was etched into a Sumerian clay tablet dating back to around 2400 B.C. People can now view the love declaration at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. Talk about love lasting for eternity.