Sindh

Tribunal declares PS-14 elections null and void

The inquiry found that the presiding officers had not followed any of the elections criteria.

Our Correspondent October 27, 2014

KARACHI:

The election tribunal cancelled on Monday the membership of Pakistan Peoples Party lawmaker, Sardar Muqeem Khan Khoso, in the Sindh Assembly.

Headed by a former judge of the Sindh High Court, Dr Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, the tribunal declared the election in the constituency void. Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan had been asked to issue a notification in this context.

The tribunal's judgement came on the two consolidated petitions brought by the first and second runner-up candidates, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's Muhammad Aslam Abro and independent candidate Mir Raja Khan Jakhrani, respectively, who had challenged the election of Khoso on the Sindh Assembly's seat of PS-14 Jacobabad."[Even with recounting of the votes,] no credibility can be attached with this result of the election,” said Dr Sherwani in his judgement. "Here, the question is not the number of votes obtained by [each] of these candidates, but the question is of transparency, credibility and fairness of the process of the entire election."

The judgement states that the presiding officers had miserably failed to comply with the law, which describes how they are required to pack the election material in different marked packets and seal them in the presence of the polling agents of the candidates.

"Admittedly, almost all the packets of the ballot papers of these candidates were unsealed and many of them were torn up in violation of the provisions," said Dr Sherwani. "At a number of polling stations, these ballot papers were not even put in any packet as required under the law, but were put in bunches and mixed with the ballot papers of other candidates." According to the May 11 election results, PML-N's candidate Abro had won the seat. Khoso went to the Sindh High Court which ordered recounting at a polling station. Khoso had emerged victorious after recounting.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2014.