2018 elections: PPP hands over rigging report to CEC

Report says out of 78,471 forms, only 128 Form-45 signed by polling agents

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) handed over on Tuesday its report on rigging in 2018 elections to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) urging the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to “take punitive action under the law against the glaring theft of the entire general election of 2018”.

The three-member PPP delegation that handed over the report to CEC today included Senator Taj Haider, head of the Central Election Monitoring Cell of PPP, and the two secretary generals of the PPP and PPPP, Syed Nayyer Hussain Bukhari and Farhatullah Babar, respectively. The report has been prepared by the PPP Central Election Cell.

“Crimes once committed are never time-barred and in the background of the punitive actions that ECP has already taken against violations of Election Act 2017, we look forward to further punitive actions on the theft of general election 2018,” the letter accompanying the report stated.

According to the official statement, the report describes in detail the pre-poll, polling day and the post-poll rigging committed by persons belonging to the administration and the security institutions, the letter said.

“Unfortunately the polling staff appointed by the Election Commission miserably failed to stop these crimes. It is also possible that some of the appointed staff became partners in these crimes,” it said.

Besides the data collected by the PPP Central Election Cell, the report also includes relevant extracts from the various reports on the General Elections 2018 prepared and published by various national and international observers who covered those elections, the letter signed by all members of the three-member PPP delegations said.

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Of extreme importance are extracts and references to the forensic study and analysis of data posted by the ECP on their website undertaken by the notable election observers FAFEN, the report maintained.

It adds that the study brings to light the fact that out of 78,471 Form 45 (Result of Count) only 128 forms had been signed by polling agents who gave the name of the candidates they were representing.

In all, it continued, there were around 5,000 signed Forms 45 on the ECP website; however, none except the above mentioned 128 forms bore the names of candidates and their political affiliation.

“One cannot say with certainty if these signatures were genuine signatures of the polling agents or not. This alone is enough to put the legality of General Elections 2018 in question,” the report read.

“There are hundreds of thousands of polling agents, candidates, representatives of print and electronic media, representative of election observers, workers of political parties, members of civil society, election officials and those belonging to the general public who are witnesses to the fact that all polling agents were forcibly thrown out of polling stations at the time of vote count and preparation of results besides other crimes under the Law committed with glaring impunity," it said.

“In a very high number of constituencies and especially in constituencies where the candidates of PPPP were generally expected to win, the results took days and days to be announced,” it said.

Talking to CEC on the occasion, the PPP delegation expressed the hope that punitive action against those who rigged the 2018 elections is of profound importance for ensuring free and fair elections in the country in the future.