Unsatisfied with numbers: Tribunal orders another round of polling in PK-90

Election tribunal requests ECP to conduct polling at seven stations at the earliest.

PESHAWAR: An election tribunal headed by Justice Ziauddin Khattak ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday to hold re-polling in seven stations of PK-90, Chitral.

Ghulam Muhammad of the All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) won the seat in the general elections in May this year while the runner-up was Pakistan Peoples Party’s Sardar Hussain. Hussain had challenged the results, saying that if the rejected and postal votes were verified and recounted, he would in fact emerge victorious.



A commission constituted by the election tribunal to verify and recount postal and rejected votes submitted a comprehensive report on October 9 which showed the runner-up was actually leading with one vote.

The commission’s report stated that Hussain got 18 more votes while Muhammad, who won with a lead of seven votes, got 10 more. Muhammad later filed an application against the commission’s report but that was dismissed by the tribunal.

The election tribunal then ordered re-polling, as soon as possible by the ECP, at seven polling stations where votes were found to be missing. Polling will take place at the Barum Ovir, Zizdi, Upper Rech, Government Higher Secondary School Booni, Charun Ovir, Awi Lasht and Government Primary School polling stations.

According to the ECP, Muhammad won from PK-90 with 10,848 votes followed by Hussain’s 10,841. This is the only provincial assembly seat won by APML, the party of former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2013.