Balochistan election: PPPP pleads for re-election in Baloch belt

Senate standing committee on interior affairs told about irregularities in voting.

ISLAMABAD:

Members of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) in Balochistan on Thursday appealed to election authorities to hold polls again in the Baloch-dominated areas of the province.

At the same time, the party rejected the results of the May 11 polls just as the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) had done earlier.

“We renounce the May 11 results,” Senator Sardar Fateh Muhammad Hasni told the Senate Standing Committee on Interior. “Ninety per cent of the elections were not held in the province as people did not come out of their homes to vote,” Hasni said.

Some 22 districts of the province are Baloch dominated, while eight are Pakhtun majority areas.

Presiding over the Senate panel, Hasni said elections were only held in 20% of the province.

Spending a month and a half in the province, where only Levies forces personnel filled ballot boxes, choosing their favourite candidate, Hasni said it is the Election Commission’s responsibility to announce elections anew in the Baloch belt of the province.

PPPP’s provincial leadership registered a complaint with the Election Commission in Quetta but in vain, he informed the committee. Endorsing Hasni’s view, PPPP Senator Yousaf Baloch said a committee ought to be constituted to probe the matter further.



No voting took place in Dera Bugti, Chaghi, Gawadar, Makran and other areas of the Baloch belt, according to him.

Both lawmakers urged Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, to take notice of what they called rigging in favour of some political parties in certain constituencies of National Assembly.

Hasni summoned the CEC, inspectors general of both Sindh and Balochistan and NADRA chairman on Thursday (May 23) for a briefing on how to resolve election-related issues.

NADRA and interior ministry officials will brief the Senate panel on May 23 whether thumb impressions can be verified or not.

Awami National Party’s Senator Shahi Syed and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Pervez Rashid endorsed the idea of fingerprint/ thumb print verification in constituencies where massive rigging was reported.

Sindh security

Elaborating upon the security lapse in Sindh, Senator Mukhtar Dharma informed the committee that robbers held his family hostage in Nawabshah on the polling day, which the interior secretary and IG Police, Sindh did not respond to despite repeated requests.

“Dacoits harassed voters in rural Sindh but security personnel did not rescue voters,” he said.

In response to Dharma’s concerns, Additional Secretary Muhammad Misbah admitted to a security lapse in Sindh. He claimed that the police in the province were deeply politicised.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2013.