Elections will not be impartial: Mian Iftikhar

PESHAWAR:

The Awami National Party’s central leader Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that the failure of the Election Commission of Pakistan and the caretaker government to prevent attacks on his party’s candidates has raised doubts over the impartiality of the May 11 polls.

Addressing a condolence meeting via Skype at the Bacha Khan Markaz on Saturday over the targeted killing of their National Assembly candidate Sadiq Zaman Khattak in Karachi, Hussain said that by not providing security to ANP candidates, the caretaker government and ECP had effectively sided with militants.

“What kind of election commission is this? An ANP worker cannot even visit his constituency while rival parties are able hold as many as six political meetings a day… there is a question mark over the elections,” asserted Hussain, who is also the ANP candidate for PK-12 (Nowshera-I).

The ANP leader came down hard on the caretaker government, accusing it of being repeatedly negligent in spite of the mounting attacks on candidates and gatherings of ANP and other liberal parties. He added that the ECP, for all its promises, had failed to provide any security for candidates as well.

“What would one do with [ECP’s] security provision when there will be no candidate alive to avail it,” questioned Hussain, in a jibe aimed at the commission’s plan for security on Election Day. He maintained that attacks against ANP and other liberal parties were tantamount to pre-poll rigging.

But while he lamented the government’s apathy regarding the attacks, the ANP leader was quick to dispel any impression that his party may boycott the elections.

“We will not boycott the elections, rather we will fight it out… the powers resorting to terrorism should not indulge in any misgiving that the ANP is under siege,” Hussain maintained.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2013.