ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s ruling party under new Prime Minister Imran Khan has maintained its slim majority in parliament after key by-elections, final results showed on Monday.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won 15 seats of the total 36 on offer in polls held across the country on Sunday, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

Its ally the Pakistan Muslim League, one of several parties with which it has formed a coalition government, won an additional two seats, bringing the coalition’s total in the national assembly — the lower house of parliament — to 177 out of 342.

The main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) increased its seat count to 85.

The by-elections come after a national vote on July 25 propelled former World Cup cricketer Khan to power, an outcome that was rejected by the main opposition parties.

Most of the national assembly seats had been open as Pakistan allows candidates to run in multiple constituencies, but keep only one seat.

Meanwhile, the wife of a Pakistani politician killed in a Taliban suicide attack during campaigning won her husband’s provincial seat.

Samar Bilour on Sunday won the provincial assembly seat in northwestern Khyber Pakthunkhwa province that her husband Haroon Bilour, a member of the anti-Taliban Awani National Party, had been scheduled to contest in July.

Haroon Bilour was killed along with 19 others in a suicide attack in Peshawar, the provincial capital, claimed by the Pakistani Taliban weeks before the July 25 polls.

The attack prompted a delay in voting for that seat.

His father, senior ANP leader Bashir Bilour, was killed in a suicide bombing in the run-up to Pakistan’s last election in 2013.

The PML-N’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who served as prime minister after Sharif was removed from office by the Supreme Court last year, was among those elected to parliament after missing out in the July elections.

Sharif, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison by an accountability court weeks before the July polls, said the run-up to the elections had been influenced by the military influencing the courts to bar a number of PML-N legislators.

The army and judiciary vehemently deny any interference in civilian politics. — Agencies