The Election Commission of Pakistan on Wednesday rebutted rigging allegations of its former additional secretary and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf deeming them ‘baseless’.
A meeting of the electoral body, held under the leadership of the Acting Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali was attended by members including Justice (r) Riaz Kayani, Justice (r) Shazad Akbar Khan and Justice (r) Fazalur Rehman. Ishtiak Ahmad Khan, Secretary Election Commission was also present in the meeting.
The commission deliberated upon allegations levelled by the PTI chairman Imran Khan and former additional secretary ECP Muhammad Afzal Khan, a statement by the media office of the electoral body stated.
Rejecting all the allegations as baseless and without substance, the commission deemed it appropriate to remind the nation of the difficult circumstances the May 2013 general elections were held under, which led to the first peaceful transition of power from one civilian government to another.
The commission observed that a large number of electoral reforms were introduced to ensure that elections were held justly, fairly and honestly. Consequently, keen interest was shown in observing the elections in Pakistan.
The Election Observer Missions of Japan, International Human Rights Commission, European Union Observation Mission, NDI, Common Wealth observers, Gender Concerns International visited various constituencies and after the poll, they all declared the general elections 2013 as free, fair, credible and successful and they also made some observations and recommendations.
Regarding the appointment of officials of judges as returning officers, ECP noted that during a consultative meeting with major political parties in September 2012, the political parties had themselves requested for the appointment of officers from within the judiciary to act as DROs, ROs in general elections-2013 and resultantly the ECP as a whole requested the former chief justice. This was followed by another similar letter written by the former Chief Election Commissioner Justice (r) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim to Chief Justice of Pakistan.
It is worthwhile to mention here that in the Judicial Policy 2009, it had been clearly decided that judiciary will not be part of any electoral process. However, upon the requests made by the ECP, the National Judicial Policy Forum comprising the four chief justices of high courts headed by the chief justice considered the request of the ECP as well as that of political parties and allowed the judicial officers to be part of electoral process.
Regarding the allegations of printing extra ballot papers on May 9 2013, the commission observed that the allegation carried no weight as PEC Punjab Mehboob Anwar had clearly denied the allegations in his statement that is reproduced, “I, Mehboob Anwar, PEC Punjab, hereby vehemently rebut the allegations leveled against me as totally baseless, frivolous and without any substance. I did my duty with clean hands. I categorically deny and state that not even a single ballot paper was got printed from any private printing press by me, as alleged.”
Published in The Express Tribune, August 28th, 2014.
COMMENTS (9)
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first of all i like to say is that you can say what you want because the avaam knows that you and your cronies Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali was attended by members including Justice (r) Riaz Kayani, Justice (r) Shazad Akbar Khan and Justice (r) Fazalur Rehman. Ishtiak Ahmad Khan are liars. don't deserve sympathy or mercy this is all of your doing.
To be fair with everyone the best way to decide who is wrong and who is right is to get a third party audit. One cannot be a judge of his own actions.
Dear Election Commission, have you even bothered to notice or act on the complaints and allegations made by your officers..? And here, you get together to safeguard your honour and future, by lying that all allegations are baseless.
Just one example:
Shah Mehmood Qureshi lost due to rigging, says Thar judge
http://tribune.com.pk/story/754602/whistleblower-shah-mehmood-qureshi-lost-due-to-rigging-says-thar-judge/
Obviously they would........what other option do they have.
another decision from cronies of Iftikhar Ch..... Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali is even not fit to be judge after his controversial statement during suo moto hearing on Karachi
ECP, Nadra, Supreme Court and Govt officials all say elections were not rigged. However, all of them also admit that very little votes can actually be verified. Futhermore, they all also agree that election process needs to be improved and has to be made more transparent. Logically, you cannot improve election process until you don't find out its weaknesses (i.e. How and Who rigged the elections). Problem is that none of them are willing to investigate rigging in elections. I wonder, Is it one of the characteristics of a failed state?
The most unfortunate thing happened to Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim was to lead the murder trail case of Bhutto. Till date the upper hand elements are trying to malign an honest judge who has fought for the best of democracy and for the people of Pakistan.
As per the constitution and Electoral Laws it is the duty and responsibility of the Election Commission(EC) to organise,conduct General Electons to the National Assembly and to nominate Returning Officers(RO) for conduct of Elections.How come on the request of the Political parties,CEC Fakhar ud din,Election Commission laid down rules,enacted law and the constitution could be violated?.The EC is accepting that the ROs were appointed by the former CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry which is clearly a blatant violation of the constitution and Law.Thus the EC has failed to hold the General Elections as per the Constitution and Law which means that last 'Elections',are null and void abnitio and that the EC needs to be reconstituted.If the present members of the EC do not resign voluntarily then a Reference needs to be sent aginst them for removal to the Judicial Commission for violating/allowing the violation of the constitution and law and making the entire general elections controversial.In addition,the former CJ and the EC has violated another constitutional provision which ask the EC to nominate judges for election tribunals but some were nominated by the former CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry.