KARACHI, Sept 26: Pakistan People’s Party has rejected the statement of Chief Election Commissioner Abdul Hameed Dogar that the foreign election observers raised no objection against the two phases of local body’s elections and that these elections were held in a transparent manner.
Commenting on the statement of CEC, chief of the PPP election monitoring committee Taj Haider and head of the Policy Planning, Sherrey Rehman, said that perhaps he did not read the interim reports of the Commonwealth, European Union and Canadian observers who had pointed out several instances of pre-poll and polling day rigging resorted to by the military regime.
The PPP leaders said that the elections held under the acting Chief Election Commissioner Justice Dogar had completely destroyed the people’s faith in free and fair elections and exposed the extent of degeneration of the national institutions under the undemocratic regime.
Taj Haider and Sherry Rehman appreciated the interim reports of Commonwealth, European Union and Canadian observers who had correctly pointed out irregularities in the local bodies elections.
Thousands of PPP supporters intending to contest the Local Bodies elections were allegedly kidnapped by police and regime’s henchmen gangs ahead of the filing of nomination papers while on the polling several thousand polling agents of Awam Dost candidates were disallowed to sit in the polling stations.
The turn-out at many polling stations of Arbab Ghulam Rahim’s constituency was shown as high as 97 per cent despite the fact that not more than 10 per cent voters reached the polling stations to cast their votes.
They feared that such conditions might force the people to demand any future elections under the UN or any other organizations and asked for establishment of an independent EC in consultation with all the stake-holders to avoid such an eventuality.
Meanwhile, leader of the opposition in Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has condemned the cold-blooded murder of Akbar Umrani, brother of PPP leader and former Balochistan Minister Sadiq Umrani in Karachi, and accused the police of acting slowly in the investigation.
He alleged that Sindh government had completely failed to provide security to the people of the province, including those opposed to it.
Nisar Khuhro asked the Sindh government to control the growing incidents of murders of the opposition members and stated that so far the government has failed to arrest the culprits involved in the killings of Munarwar Hussain Suhrawardy, and Abdullah Murad.
PPP Sindh president Syed Qaim Ali Shah also deplored the chief minister’s move to demolish the home of PPP district Tharparker General Secretary Dadan Hingorjo in Mithi.
