 It's an episode of elections at today's daily debrief, one that's currently ongoing and one in the near future. We begin with Pakistan where the results of the historic process that took place on Thursday are trickling in amid much chaos. Now as of now and this is important, as of now is evening on Friday. It does seem like independence backed by the Pakistan Tehri Ke Insaf party or former Prime Minister Imran Khan have a slight edge. Now it is important to note that the party was not allowed to contest in these elections officially because it was denied its symbol and thus its candidates took part in the elections as independence. The delay in announcing these results has already led to a lot of controversy with the PTI that is Imran Khan's party alleging rigging. While we don't know the final results yet and a lot may change by the time that this episode is out, the results so far itself indicate that this is a landmark election. We go to Abdul for more. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. A very interesting election in Pakistan. Of course the results are delayed also a controversy but from the results available right now it looks like the candidates backed by the PTI are in the lead. And of course this was quite unexpected I suppose although we had talked about it before. But while we are recording it, what is evening on Friday in Pakistan results still a lot more results to come. So take us through what is available right now. Well Prashant as per the election commission of Pakistan's official results which have been there, which have been announced and which is reported by the local media in Pakistan. Only 86 seats have been announced. We should remember that there are only 266 seats which are contested out of that one seat of course because of the technical reason it is not the election will be held on that seat later. So out of 265 only 86 results are out so far. And this is as you rightly pointed out quite late. The official results were to be announced as per the CPS official announcement on Thursday late night. But this is more than 12 hours. In fact more than 16 hours and only 33 to 40% seats results of that is out. And as per the record as per the CPS official results out of these 33 seats have been won by the candidates which are independent. Of course, all of them are backed by PTI as it is claimed by them. And then the PLM Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz which was considered to be the leading which was considered to be the front runner in all official channels is basically trailing with 27 seats. PPP is very close by with 18 seats so far. Rest of the seats are with other parties. Some of them are also independent. So this is official status as this point. Of course, there are as you rightly pointed out there is controversy. PTI in particular has contested the results announced so far and claimed that they have won majority so already. And they are also amazed that the election commission of Pakistan is indulging in rigging of results. Abdul, so just to go back to that point which is that like you said many all the official channels and official narrative was that the PTI was pretty much finished. The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz or former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was said to lead. There had been an agreement. So what do you think prompted? Of course, there will be more time for more detailed analysis maybe next week. But right now what do you think is prompted this kind of a result which seems quite surprising? Well Prashant see even in this result officially which is announced see there are more than almost 150 seats which officially are to be declared and it seems that whatever the Pakistan media is reporting and or has been reporting since last night in majority of those seats independence have been leading. Of course, official results may be different, but that's what the the version is there at least in the public domain. And that is the basis on which there are claims made that there is an attempt to manipulate the final results and so and so forth. What prompted this of course is quite obvious. The reason behind it, which were obvious during the public opinion surveys conducted by different agencies before the final vote that there is a widespread anger among the Pakistanis at this moment. And particularly it this anger was also channelized by the Imran Khan's party ever since they were basically removed from power in April 2022 through a no confidence vote. So Imran Khan and PTI had pitched that this is basically they have been removed unfairly because of the external intervention and the army and other political establishment have been against them. And that basically had led to a kind of greater mobilization behind Imran Khan and PTI. And despite the fact that they were not allowed to contest as a political group and all the candidates of PTI are contesting as independent in seems there is a popular mobilization behind them. That is also reflected in the final voter turnout though official figures are not out but the speculations are that this is unprecedented in Pakistan's history and much more than of course than 50% which was there in 2018 last national elections. So that shows that the additional mobilization people came out and voted prime one of the major reasons of course is the anger against the established political party the way Nawaz Sharif was brought in and pushed and they PTI and Imran Khan were pushed behind that basically has infuriated people. That is what the analysts are saying. Of course there are also reasons which are much more grounded reasons and you can say much more structural in nature in a sense that Pakistan economy in particular has been in very bad shape for last many years and it has become bad towards in last you can say two years since Imran Khan was removed from power. And that basically had also added into the anger against the established party and particularly the parties which were in power in this period which is the PML and PPP in alliance. So economic and economic reasons which has created frustration among the people and of course the sense that there is a attempt to kind of rig popular mandate. There is attempt to sideline popular mandate. These two things together could be the factor behind this kind of result which we are seeing at this moment in our front. Thank you so much for that update. We will come back to you most probably on Monday with for a deeper analysis of the results as well. From Pakistan we go to the United States and the legal challenges before Donald Trump all of which are connected to the elections later this year. The US Supreme Court is hearing Trump's challenge of a Colorado court verdict which bars him from the state's primary on account of the insurrection attempt of January 6, 2021. Trump has also recently hit with an adverse verdict on the question of immunity he enjoys which he is likely to contest to. To understand these cases and more importantly their implication on the election we go to Anish. Anish thanks so much for joining us. So let's first go to the arguments currently that at least the arguments that took place in the US Supreme Court on Thursday. What was this case about? What was Trump contesting basically? Well obviously the case we have covered about it is based on the Colorado Supreme Court state Supreme Court ruling that disqualified Trump from standing in the ballot for the Republican primaries. And obviously this was followed by another state Supreme Court ruling in Maine, the state of Maine and in both these cases Trump was disqualified from standing as a candidate. In the party primary it kind of also essentially disqualifies him from standing even in the later presidential elections to be held in November this year. Now in both the cases the case itself is nothing new because what we have seen so far in the last two years it is based on the insurrection phase which is the Capitol Hill writing that happened. In January of 2021 when Trump incited, essentially incited several of the supporters to fight like hell and storm the Congress House, the Capitol building which holds the Congress which was at the time vetting the election results. So this case itself was construed by many who have proposed Trump as a sign of insurrection because an insurrection can be essentially anything that undoes or tries to upturn the constitutional process of the United States. It has never been used. Now one of the things is that in this clause within the Constitution which is the only clause that allows for a disqualification of a candidate from running for president has never been used and Trump is probably the first person to be ever used against pretty much disqualifying him. The clause itself was in fact created in the post civil war era United States to disqualify confederate leaders from contesting elections of any kind for that matter and prevent them from taking office, any constitutional office. Now the case before when it reached the Supreme Court we had already, there was already an understanding that it is most likely to rule in favor of Trump because we are looking at the conservative supermajority. So for majority, three of these judges were Trump appointees themselves. So it is quite unlikely for them to rule against him. And if it does that would be very interesting but the likelihood of that is not some anywhere even in the horizon. But what kind of arguments they're going to go for is going to be interesting and that will have major implications, not just for the upcoming elections but also overall like who gets to stand and who gets disqualified it kind of has a constitution remaking kind of implications. Now the judges all have already like we had a very barely a two hour or three hour long hearing session and it was pretty much concluded with that. And so the judges are most likely to rule in favor of Trump. They have raised a lot of points where one at least have raised this point that whether or not a single state has the power to disqualify somebody from standing for a presidential election which is a national election. While fair but we have known for the past several years and covering US elections that US elections in general are decided by a handful of states very often rather than any kind of popular mandate. On the other hand, there has been arguments raised by, you know, opponents, the people who have petitioned against Trump, most of whom are Republicans themselves that Trump cannot be trusted because there is there is a question of whether or not there has been an insurrection or not, which is something that the judges have not touched so far, which actually then from actually making a judgment that would decide what kind of acts constitute an insurrection and by definition to decide whether or not Trump has the right to contest the elections. So it is a very complicated thing they have tried to sharpen it so that it favors Trump and it is quite obvious at this point in time. And Anish of course there's another case as well which is likely also to go to the Supreme Court that has to do with the immunity Trump is you know supposed to enjoy as president could you also detail that case for us. Essentially, the idea of immunity comes from the fact that presidents or anybody holding a constitutional office is immune from certain kinds of prosecutions and obviously in some cases also arrest. And in the case of Trump, Trump has been trying to use the immunity clause to prevent any kind of prosecution against him, whether it be, you know, misplacing classified official files, or for that matter, his case of, you know, trying to buy himself out of a sex scandal case, or even right now with the insurrection case that half a dozen or more than half a dozen insurrection case that are still active and still going on. And in all of this he is trying to use immunity clause to, you know, prevent any kind of prosecution to be even begin with not just, you know, prevent himself from being arrested. That is something that will be quite interesting. The appeals court has ruled against him, obviously, but it is for the Supreme Court to decide and we have to wait and see how that is going to pan out again. Obviously, we can obviously expect a favorable ruling for him. It is just the kind of legal definition of the arguments that the Supreme Court, the courts would put forth in giving out their judgments that will be more impactful than, you know, the case at hand. On the other hand, as I said, like the immunity itself still kind of continues in many ways because as long as the case continues, he is pretty much immune from even, you know, the disqualifications that he has been put through. And in many ways, there was a de facto kind of immunity that is afforded to him at this point, which he is using obviously well in his election campaigns, you know, in the current state and we have seen primary after primary where he has used, you know, several clauses as well. There is also the question of whether or not he can, and that comes through, you know, the question of whether or not he can talk about the cases that are already being heard in the indifferent courts in federal courts, especially, and that is also something that has become a central focus right now because it previously has been recommended for, you know, even, you know, making claims against judges during his election campaign. So these are definitely going to have an impact. We have to wait and see because, again, primaries and the cases are going to take months to decide and November is still a long way to go. So a lot of things can happen, but at least in the case of the insurrection, the instruction charges against him, we might have judgment shortly and its implications and the kind of arguments that we will see that can also have an impact in several other of these other cases against him right now. Anish, of course, a million dollar question is that what impact is this having on Donald Trump, the candidate, like you said, the primaries are ongoing in many states, it's a long process, but it's already started. He seems to be steamrolling his way through the campaign, but both at the Republican Party level and at the national level, what impact, is there any impact at all? Definitely, he is using it as a plank right now. He is trying to present and he has always presented himself as this sort of after like figure being hounded by, you know, Democrats and at some level, the political elites. This also halts back to his 2016 election campaign where he has presented himself as the political outsider, you know, and compared to DC insiders. Obviously, that is not true when we look at some of the bad facts, but a lot of people are definitely taking this up. The kind of support that we're seeing within the Republican Party, even in the Nevada primary where he wasn't testing, he wasn't allowed to contest. And, you know, there were no wealthy support to none of the above candidate option, clearly shows that he has significant support within the Republican primaries or the Republican Party as a whole, which has now increasingly become more Trump, more pro Trump than it was say a couple of years ago. But on the other hand, this is how it is going to affect the electorate at large, which is obviously much bigger than the Republican Party. And it's voters, it's something that is something that we need to wait and see because the electorate, as we know, is becoming even more polarized on several of these questions. And polarized elections often have, you know, very, very unpredictable results. And we can't really say how things are going to because we never really expected him to even lose many of us didn't expect him to lose the 2020 elections, because of how polarizing it was at the time and how much support he had, you know, garnered at the time. Nevertheless, he lost that election, and it is still going to be a similar level of unpredictability that we can see in the coming days. But definitely the polarizing factor is huge. And that is, that is, you know, led into pretty much everything media, civil society, pretty much every argument surrounding the election is pretty much about the cases of Trump. And barely, at least in the mainstream media and the mainstream platforms, we do not see much on other issues, other major, you know, data issues that actually affect average Americans. And that is something that is pretty much a direct outcome of these cases in many ways, and how it is being used by the Trump campaign right now. Ranish, thank you so much for that update. We'll come back to you. Definitely an issue that's not going anywhere for many months now. That's all we have in today's Daily Debrief. We'll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow. Meanwhile, do visit our website, peoplesdispatch.org. Follow us on all the social media platforms. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button.