The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) on Thursday said that decisive action is required by the state against terrorist groups attempting to sabotage the elections and intimidate candidates, supporters, polling officials and voters across Pakistan. It called for formal statements denouncing anti-elections violence from all parties and candidates.
Incidents of terrorism on May 11 are likely to cause low voter turnout, discouraging voting and impacting results. Keeping in view these specific threats, FAFEN recommended that detailed security plans be prepared for sensitive constituencies.
The increasingly deadly wave of terrorism targeting some political parties and their supporters is compromising the fairness of the election process. Despite clear directives from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to the caretaker government, no concrete strategy to counter acts of terrorism against certain political parties, government and election functionaries and security forces has been devised, the report said.
ECP itself has no mandate or resources to address terrorist acts;
the state is legally bound to enlist all security forces and agencies to assist the ECP in ensuring peaceful elections, which includes the current campaign period in advance of polling day on May 11.
The failure of the state and its security forces to take decisive action against terrorist groups could be interpreted as the biased facilitation of anti-election efforts. Militant groups so far seem to have acted with impunity and state agencies took little or no action against them as is required by anti-terrorism laws and the Representation of the Peoples Act (1976).
FAFEN called on all election contestants and parties to collectively declare that all Pakistanis stand united against terrorism and anti-elections violence. No party or candidate should benefit from – or allow itself to appear to benefit from – terrorist threats against election opponents.