Trump or Biden: Pakistan ready to work with whoever wins US election

Election an internal matter of US but Pakistan conveys its best wishes to the people of the country, says FO

As Americans vote in a bitterly contested election for a White House race between President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden, with millions of ballots still to count, the Foreign Office has said that Pakistan was looking forward to "working with anyone who wins".

“Pakistan looks forward to working with anyone who wins today,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Chaudhri told Arab News.

He also said that the election was an internal matter of the United States but Pakistan conveyed its best wishes to the people of the country.

By early Wednesday, the race was down to a handful of states, and both Trump, 74, and Biden, 77, had possible paths to reach the needed 270 Electoral College votes to win White House.

Shortly after Biden said he was confident of winning the contest once the votes are counted, Trump appeared at the White House to declare victory and said his lawyers would be taking his case to the US Supreme Court, without specifying what they would claim.

“We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election,” Trump said. “This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.” He provided no evidence to back up his claim of fraud.

Joe Biden's White House campaign slammed President Donald Trump's threat to try to stop the election vote count as "outrageous", saying its legal team was ready to prevent such an "unprecedented" act.

"The president's statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect," Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon said in a statement as the election remained undecided.

"Never before in our history has a president of the United States sought to strip Americans of their voice in a national election."

The magic number for victory is 270 out of a total of 538 votes in the Electoral College.

Earlier in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, Prime Minister Imran Khan shared his similarities with Donald Trump as "he plays by his own rules" unlike average politicians.

"We had to be very unorthodox, and in some ways, Donald Trump does too," the premier said when asked about similarities between him and the US president.

When asked about his fondness of the US president, PM Imran replied that as a politician who started his own party and then built it up into the biggest party in Pakistan over 22 years, he also had to do a lot of out-of-the-box-thinking just like Trump.

"We were the first to rely on social media and the first to attract the youth to our rallies."