ISLAMABAD: Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) Secretary Babar Yaqoob said on Thursday any complaint regarding the election results will be resolved swiftly.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, he said he has talked in detail with district returning officers of Lahore and Rawalpindi who have assured that all complaints will be addressed as per rules.
He said there is no shortage of Form 45 and if any candidate is facing problem in this regard, he/she should immediately contact the ECP. To a question, he said the RTS was working satisfactorily after the initial breakdown.
Yaqoob told the media persons that the authority received 675 complaints on the July 25. The ECP secretary said that in the entire world the process of releasing results takes time.
He added that most of the complaints were about slow service by 8300, the number for acquiring information. Yaqoob said that in the previous elections, almost three days were spent for the compilation of the results.
“Around 82 percent results have been received from across the country,” said Yaqoob, adding that returning officers have announced ‘almost 90 percent results’.
“Total voter turnout has been 55 percent,” said the secretary ECP. The ECP has to ensure that the results are correct before releasing them, he added.
RTS FAILURE CAUSED DELAYS:
He also stated that the commission’s computerised system has developed a glitch, causing hour-long delays in the announcement and compilation of electoral results.
Yaqoob denied allegations of vote count manipulation.
“There was no conspiracy or attempt to influence the results; it was just a software failure,” Yaqoob said.
“Only 25,000 out of 85,000 officials could electronically send results due to a failure in the Results Transmission System (RTS) software,” he said.
Yaqoob also said that the software had not been tested before the elections.
“This was the first time we had used the RTS in an election,” he explained.
About election rigging allegations, he said that the commission would look into the claims.
“The results were not withheld as candidates and political parties have claimed; actually the result has not been prepared so far,” he further explained.
PITB CLARIFIES:
Following the allegations of deliberately manipulating the systems to delay the election results, Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) clarified that it did not made the RTS. PITB Chairman Dr Umar Saif maintained that he had no connection with the RTS