Before the elections: PML-N predicts pre-poll rigging will take place

Party wants fair and transparent elections.

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) leaders have claimed that pre-poll rigging was being planned as the names of their party voters were not enrolled in Karachi and other parts of Sindh.

According to Saleem Zia, the PML-N’s general secretary in Sindh, the PML-N and other parties would challenge the voter list if the issues they were facing were not dealt with properly. “The last date to finalise the list is near,” he said. “Party workers cannot handle all the technical issues and therefore the date should be extended.” He added that they would not let the elections take place if these problems persisted.

While speaking at a press conference in Keamari at PML-N leader Humayun Khan’s house on Thursday, Zia said that a fair list was essential for fair and transparent general elections. “The Muttahida Qaumi Movement made claims that it managed a clean sweep in the 2008 elections,” he said. “The law and order situation in the city is exposing its claims and shows that the elections were rigged.”

Zia rejected the voter list and asked the chief justice to take suo motu notice of the issue.

Marvi Memon, who joined the PML-N earlier this month, said that there was only one party resisting the government’s bad policies and that party was the PML-N.

“The law and order situation is not good in the city,” she said. “I regret that I was part of a party that supported a fascist party like the MQM.” She added that at first she was struggling alone but now she was part of a party of ‘lions’.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2012.