Court prevents ECP from declaring PS-85 Mirpur Sakro results

Sassui Palijo complains of grave irregularities and violations during recent elections.

KARACHI:

The Election Commission of Pakistan has been restrained from announcing the results of the elections for PS-85 Mirpur Sakro in Thatta till May 24.

The Sindh High Court gave the order on a petition filed by Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Sassui Palijo, who complained that the district returning officer in Thatta and her rival candidate, Ameer Haider Shah Shirazi, allegedly violated the law and the code of conduct during the elections on May 11. Her lawyer, Munir A. Malik, said the petitioner is a former provincial minister whose family has been winning the elections from Thatta district for decades.

Palijo contested election from the same constituency but her mandate was robbed through various irregularities committed at various polling stations to engineer her rival’s victory. “These irregularities include non-appearance or late appearance of the election staff, late start and early closure of polling, preventing and influencing the voters through intimidation by use of weapons, shifting the ballot boxes and allowing the opponents to cast multiple votes,” Malik outlined one by one.



He complained that none of the returning officers at any of 121 total polling stations in the constituency bothered to prepare “ballot paper account” and provide the same to Palijo and her polling agents despite the fact that it is a mandatory requirements under sections 38(10) and (11) of the Representation of Peoples Act 1976. Her defeat is attributed to a nominal margin of 408 votes, he pointed out.

The lawyer told the judges that although his client wants to seek re-counting of the votes as provided under section 103-AA, she was afraid that the election commission might announce Ameer Haider as a successful candidate. He pleaded the court restrain the ECP from notifying or declaring any candidate from the constituency until a final decision is made on her complaint.

He also pleaded that the ECP should be barred from filling the Sindh Assembly seats reserved for female candidates.

After the preliminary hearing, the bench barred the ECP from notifying the election results of PS-85 till May 24. It also issued notices to the ECP and relevant offcials.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2013.