FAFEN faces charges of trying to instigate riot

Cases registered against network’s chief executive for misreporting election results.


Owais Jafri May 16, 2013
FAFEN had reported that in NA 195 and NA 193 the voter turnout was more than 240% on the day of elections.

MULTAN:


Whether it was due to miscalculations or misreporting, the Free and Fair Elections Network, (FAFEN) now faces charges of disseminating misinformation which could disrupt the peace and cause strife among various sections of the public.


Police in Rahim Yar Khan District have lodged an FIR against the FAFEN chief Syed Mudassir Rizvi under section 505/B for propagating wrong information with the intention to disrupt peace under section. The FIR was lodged on the orders of the DPO Rahim Yar Khan, SSP Sohail Habib Tajik.

FAFEN had reported that in NA 195 and NA 193 the voter turnout was more than 240% on the day of elections, but the official figures say otherwise.

Given the volatile post-election political climate, the FAFEN report, according to police, can cause a riot in the constituency.

FAFEN claims that voter turnout was more than the total registered voters in many polling stations. The network has backed its claims on reports of its representatives appointed at each polling station.

FAFEN has raised objections on the results of 49 constituencies of the provincial assemblies and the National Assembly after taking samples from 8,119 polling stations. It has also demanded the ECP take notice of the situation.



Despite the objection raised by FAFEN that voter turnout was more than 240% in NA-193 and NA-195, the official numbers presented a different story in Rahim Yar Khan.

According to the results in NA-193, Sheikh Fayazuddin of PML-N has won with 86,015 votes beating Mian Abdus Sattar of PPP who had secured 46,134 votes. Total registered voters in 257 polling stations in sub district Khanpur of Rahim Yar Khan were 288,381 and total votes cast were 163,913.

Similarly, results issued by the returning officer Justice Sardar Muhammad Khan in NA-195 in sub district Rahim Yar Khan of the same district, the total registered voters are 307,813 and votes cast are 172,539. Winning candidate Syed Mustafa Mehmood of PPP secured 97,769 votes beating the independent candidate Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiyar who had secured 46,888 votes.

As per the official record, the FAFEN figures are completely off the mark.

Police lodged the separate FIRs in Khanpur police station and Iqbalabad police station in Rahim Yar Khan on the applications of the respective station house officers of the police stations.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16th, 2013.

COMMENTS (13)

MOHAMMAD FAROOQ | 10 years ago | Reply

fafen report is totaly wrong.....i challenge......overvoting is not possible election commission issue only ballet papers not more that actual number of votes

Ghani Bukhari | 10 years ago | Reply

whi is funding fafen. it took 45 million dollars from USAID for this observation. Is there any one to check it out

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