Former minister wants 2013 elections declared void

The Supreme Court (SC) has been moved against last year’s general elections, pleading those polls be declared void.

In his application submitted under Article 184(3) of the Constitution of Pakistan, former Interior Minister Mian Zahid Sarfraz has raised questions about the fairness of the entire election exercise carried out by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to conduct the general elections for national and provincial assemblies.

According to the petitioner, “The ECP failed to ensure that election was conducted honestly, justly and fairly and further failed to ensure that instructions issued and orders made in accordance with the exercise of statutory powers were not complied with by the election staff in the conduct of honest, just and fair elections as mandated by Article 103 (C) of the Representation of People Act 1976.”

The petitioner has also submitted a break up of votes in 24 specimen constituencies (NA-118 to NA-130 of Lahore and NA-17 to NA-85 of Faisalabad) elaborating the possibility of extra votes casted in these constituencies as the number of votes casted in these constituencies were much above the number of votes that could humanly be casted if every voter was given approximately 4 minutes to cast his/her vote for national and provincial assemblies.

Talking to Pakistan Today, the former minister showed his confidence in the independent judiciary and asserted that his petition carried a lot of merit and there was every possibility that SC would accept his petition and would declare the General Elections 2013 as null and void.