Election Rigging

Rigging in elections

2013 General elections were held on 11^th of May for the appointment of the 14^th National assembly and the 4 provincial assemblies of the provinces. The procedure for election was conducted in all provinces and in Islamabad that is the Federal Capital territory. The two territories of Pakistan which are Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Blatistan couldn't participate due to their dubious conditions.

The elections were conducted in 272 constituencies out of which 70 seats were reserved to the women belonging parties and the parties from minority group.

General elections in Pakistan have been blemished by claiming of rigging along with the interference of the officialdom. ECP (Election Commission of Pakistan) that is responsible for conducting elections procedure in Pakistan admitted the claims of rigging and the convicted persons on that account were Returning officers according to the ECP.

On 26^th of September ECP was supposed to declare a “disowning” report instead of it declare the map to follow the electoral reorganization. The statements pass by ECP and the present government doesn't match as the government says that the elections in 2013 were the most free and fare elections in the history of Pakistan.

The secretary of EC resigned on the statement that the elections had the most historic rigging in the history of Pakistan that has never been done before.

In the report published by ECP they admitted the rigging and blame the institutes like NADRA, FBR and the State Bank for not cooperating, the returning officer had so much power that he was not liable over the electoral process and the papers of nominations were not properly examine. The report also mentioned the failure of the program “Results Management System” that was organized by the UN Development Program.

The elections soon seem controversial when the chief election commissioner instantly declared the failure of free and fair polls in KHI, which is the largest city in Pakistan having a population of 20 million. The irregularities in the election occurred by not having a record of 139 constituencies. The chief election commissioner claimed that there was extreme intrusion of judiciary. According to the largest media groups of Pakistan Jung and Geo, PML (N) emerged as the Pakistan largest political party followed by PPP and PTI. Although the claims of Jung and Geo confirmed that only 18 % votes were counted.

PTI continuously insisted to have thumb verification in four constituencies the request was rejected by the PML (N), and that make the role of the PML (N) dubious in the elections. Hence PTI conduct rallies for that, which was joined by the PML (Q) and MWM Shia minority.

Other political parties in Pakistan didn't join the march of PTI but they did complain about not having fair elections and also demanded the resignation of election commission members.