KARACHI, Aug 23: The deputy chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Senator Prof Ghafoor Ahmad, has said that the election commission is neither free nor independent and the local government elections of Aug 18 were not transparent.
He asked that if people lost faith in the election process, what legal and constitutional method would then be available to bring a peaceful change of government.
Prof Ghafoor, who was addressing a press conference on Tuesday, stated that the army and Rangers were used to rig the polls.
The JI Karachi chief, Dr Mairajul Huda Siddiqui presented some of the documents pertaining to manipulation in the polls.
It was a matter of serious concern that besides ignoring whatever happened on the polling day, the results were being changed even after polling, he said while referring to a statement of the acting chief election commissioner that the election on Aug 18 was transparent and impartial.
Senator Ghafoor said the EC chief had also announced to hold re-polling in the constituency where women were not allowed to vote, but what remedy, he said, had the EC to offer to the candidates, who had won the elections in the presence of the EC personnel but were declared defeated.
He pointed out that the army had been deployed on the instructions of the chief election commissioner for the second phase polling on Aug 25, but it were the same army and Rangers in the presence of whom elections were rigged in Karachi.
He recalled that the MMA had called for the deployment of army and Rangers inside polling booths, but the demand was ignored.
He expressed gratitude to Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain for his phone call and him expressing concern over the incident of firing outside his (Mr Ghafoor’s) house.
Citing a show on a private TV channel on Sunday night, attended by him and Dr Farooq Sattar, Mr Ghafoor said he himself informed Mr Sattar about the firing incident and the latter assured him that the incident would be investigated.
On Monday, Home Minister Rauf Siddiqui came with an electronic media team, and he too promised to conduct investigation. But, Mr Ghafoor said that he was sorry to say that Dr Sattar, in his press conference, had instead implicated the Jamaat-i-Islami in the firing incident.
