PTI failed to prove rigging, judges told on last day of probe

• Judicial Commission reserves verdict as ECP lawyer says no evidence of organised rigging was brought to its notice from anywhere
• Raja says technical errors are a normal occurrence in elections all over the world

The judicial commission tasked with probing rigging allegations in May 2013 general elections concluded its proceedings on Friday and reserved its verdict.

A three-judge commission headed by Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk and comprising Justice Amir Hani Muslim and Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan held 39 hearings in 86 days during which it questioned 69 witnesses presented by various political parties.

Sources privy to the developments said that the verdict would likely be made public before Eidul Fitr or by the end of July.

On Friday, the last day of hearing, Election Commission of Pakistan’s counsel Salman Akram Raja while concluding his arguments said that “technical errors are a normal occurrence in elections all over the world”. “Elections are never free of errors,” he added.

Raja maintained that the 12 applications submitted by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) could not prove that the elections were rigged, and that it would be wrong to say that somebody’s mandate was stolen in the 2013 elections. “The ECP received no evidence that would prove organised rigging in the 2013 general elections,” he said.

He argued that the difference in the number of ballot papers printed for various constituencies was due to two different formulas under which the ballot papers were printed. According to Raja, the ECP cannot anticipate the turnout of voters. He stressed that the ECP is bound under the constitution to expect 100 per cent turnout and print ballot papers as per the number of registered voters.

He further said that only Punjab ensured that there was no shortfall of ballot papers.

On the issue of fake CNIC numbers on counterfoils, Raja said the misprinting of CNIC numbers were typo errors, which did not render a vote bogus. Raja however admitted that there were procedural lapses which can be addressed through reforms.

The ECP lawyer admitted that the custody of post-election material needs to be improved and the federal government as well as the parliament should look into this affair.

“ECP is facing immense shortage of funds and despite several requests the government has not raised funds for it,” Raja added.

Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk questioned what the future planning of the ECP is regarding storage of post-election material. The ECP counsel replied that the commission has already asked the federal government to allocate land for building a godown to store the material.

Earlier, The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had raised questions over the ‘neutrality’ of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) before the enquiry commission.

PTI counsel Abdul Hafeez Pirzada informed the three-judge commission that the ECP on every step of the way balked at providing the record of the last elections, adding that the poll authority should have made available the entire record pertaining to the elections 2013 on day one.

The Supreme Court announced the formation of the enquiry commission on April 9 to probe the alleged rigging in the 2013 general election.

The decision to setup the commission was taken by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) after an agreement with the PTI on April 1 on its terms of reference after months of political bickering which reached its pinnacle when the PTI held its sit-in at the D-Chowk near the Parliament House in the federal capital last year.