Electoral rigging: Tribunal reserves verdict on plea challenging Sadiq’s victory

Imran Khan said polls had been rigged to favour NA speaker.

LAHORE: An election tribunal on Monday reserved for August 22 its verdict on a petition filed by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan challenging the victory of National Assembly (NA) Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq from NA-122, saying that the 2013 general election had been rigged.

Concluding his arguments, Anees Ali Hashmi, counsel for Khan, told Judge Kazim Ali Malik that nearly 45,000 invalid votes had been polled in the constituency. He said wrong national identity card (CNIC) numbers had been found on a large number of ballot counterfoils; some digits were found missing on many more counterfoils.

Hashmi said verification of counterfoils by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and the report of an inquiry commission suggested that the Election Commission’s record was not accurate.

He said the vote counting process had not been correct. The number of votes counted by presiding officers was different from that counted by the inquiry commission.

The lawyer said the election had been rigged to ensure that Sadiq won the seat.

Barrister Asjad Saeed, counsel for Sadiq, had argued that after examining the record the NADRA and the local commission had not concluded that there had been rigging. He said the inquiry commission had told the tribunal that Sadiq had a lead of 8,851 votes even if the votes, reported invalid, were excluded from the record. The inquiry commission had examined Forms 14 and 15, thumb impressions of the presiding officers and the various signatures in the presence of representatives of the PTI and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

Saeed had called Khan’s allegations baseless. He said there was no substantial material available to establish rigging. He asked the judge to reject the petition for being non-maintainable.

In its report, the NADRA said it had processed 184,151 votes through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) to match fingerprints on counterfoils with fingerprint data of registered voter, held with the NADRA. The software had verified the thumb impressions on 73,478 counterfoils, nearly 40 per cent of the votes cast in the constituency. The report stated that 93,852 votes had not been processed because of the poor quality of the fingerprints.

The NADRA said that during authentication they had discovered that there were 6,123 votes cast on which the CNIC numbers used were invalid. There were 2,862 votes which carried notarisation issues with some digits missing on CNIC numbers. There were 3,440 votes on which the writing was illegible. There were 370 counterfoils on which the CNIC number had not been noted. On 255 counterfoils, more than one CNIC numbers had been noted. They found 1,715 votes on which there were no fingerprints to scan. Additionally there were 570 CNIC numbers that were not registered in NA-122.

On February 7, the PTI counsel had cross-examined Sadiq. Counsel for Sadiq had said his client’s failure to reply to some of the questions did not establish rigging. On May 16, lawyers from both sides had cross-examined NADRA Director General Muzaffar Hussain Shah about the ink used for taking the thumb impressions.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2015.