Sindh High Court building. PHOTO: EXPRESS
"We are handing over this matter to the court now," said the election commissioner, Saleem Rajput. He added that the chief election commissioner, Shoaib Siddiqui, had called a meeting of all the candidates on Wednesday afternoon, which was attended by candidates from the Ahmed Shah and Shehr-e-Quaid panels, as well as two independent candidates. Siddiqui accepted the Shehr-e-Quaid panel's demand for manual counting but the panel also demanded re-polling during the meeting, which was not accepted.
Crying foul: Arts Council poll results withheld after row over counting
At 2:30pm, the process of manually counting the votes was started on the directions of the chief election commissioner under Rajput's supervision but the Shehr-e-Quaid panel boycotted the process. The counting continued with candidates from the Ahmed Shah panel and two independent candidates present.
An SHC order was received during the counting, in which the announcement of the results had been restrained. The Arts Council article of memorandum states that all powers will remain with the current body if the results are not announced before December 31. The current office is being held by the Ahmed Shah Panel.
Headed by Justice Muhammad Faisal Kamal Alam, a single SHC bench granted a restraining order on a lawsuit instituted by the Shehr-e-Quaid panel, which had accused the Ahmed Shah panel of rigging the elections.
Casting ballots: Arts Council gears up for election today
The plaintiff group's representatives, Dr Buland Iqbal and others, stated that the rival Ahmed Shah panel had committed irregularities in the election held on December 20.
Their lawyer, Saalim Salam Ansari, cited examples of the Ahmed Shah panel announcing its victory while the voting process was still in process on the day of polling. He claimed that a total of 2,700 votes were polled but there were around 1,500 un-polled votes in the Shah panel's possession.
The plaintiffs expressed apprehension that the defendant panel might add these un-polled votes during the counting process in order to secure its victory. They pleaded to the court to stay the vote counting. The court was also requested to order its nazir to seize the ballot papers in order to ensure that the results are not changed to favor their opponents.
After hearing the initial arguments, the SHC bench issued notices to the Ahmed Shah panel and the election commissioner to file their replies to the allegations contained in the suit by the plaintiff. Till then, the bench stayed the vote counting. The court also appointed its official, Anwar Ali, as commissioner to take possession of the election-related material, such as ballot papers, into custody and seal the same till further orders are issued.
Ahmed Shah, head of the Ahmed Shah panel, accused the Shehr-e-Quaid panel of wanting to disrupt the election result because they can see themselves losing the polls. I had a landslide victory as my entire panel was winning the elections, he said, adding that 2,000 votes had been counted when the court order arrived. According to Shah, the judge had only heard one party's version of events, so his group would also approach the court when it reopened on Monday.
According to Mahmud Khan, head of the Shehr-e-Quaid panel, on the eve of the vote counting, the laptops were installed with unreliable software, which is why they demanded manual counting. We had another reservation that polling was ended by 11pm on Sunday but the counting started around 3am, after a four-hour delay, explained Khan. He added that they had presented their grievances in the SHC after their meeting with Siddiqui on Wednesday. However, he said that they would accept whatever the court ruled in this case.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 25th, 2015.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ