Dubbing the recent by-polls in Sindh as being rigged, the Sindh United Party (SUP) Chairman Jalal Mahmood Shah on Wednesday said the widespread rigging had exposed the inability of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold free and fair election in the country.
Talking to media persons at his residence, the SUP chief said that expecting from the ECP to hold transparent election in the whole country was a daunting task, given its inability to check rigging in by-polls conducted for a couple of seats in the province.
Shah’s statement came after Tuesday’s report of The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) alleging the by-polls in two constituencies in Sindh and one in Punjab on February 18th were rigged.
In Sindh, by-elections were held in PS-73 (Jamshoro-Dadu) and PS-84 (Thatta-I).
The SUP chief arranged a special screening for journalists before the briefing, of a video that showed the irregularities allegedly committed by the ruling Pakistan People’s (PPP).
Shah accused the ruling party of breaking all previous records of election rigging on February 18th. He claimed that real election had started well before its due date on February 14th when the provincial government had initiated uplift projects worth Rs 161 million in the constituency. This, he said, was a sheer violation of the ECP’s code of conduct.
Furthermore he said the PPP’s candidates in PS-72 and PS-84, namely Murad Ali Shah and Sadiq Memon, had earlier resigned after failing to prove that they were not dual nationality holders. “Fielding dual nationals as election candidates is a clear violation of the Supreme Court’s order,” he maintained.
Shah said he would hand the video evidence of shameless rigging to the ECP, the staff of which along with the police had also connived with the riggers. Mahmood demanded that army personnel should be deployed at every polling station to make the forthcoming election fair and transparent.
