LAHORE, May 15: The Pakistan People’s Party said on Wednesday it accepted the May 11 election results despite massive rigging in the electoral exercise.

“The government formed on (the basis of) bogus mandate will not last for more than a year,” PPP secretary general Sardar Latif Khosa told a press conference here at the party’s provincial secretariat in Faisal Town.

He said those who used to come to power using backdoor had managed to get ‘fake mandate’.

Khosa said the level of rigging could be gauged from the 300 per cent voters’ turn out in some of the polling stations.

He said the PML-N again used the slogan of ‘jag Punjabi jag’ (Wake up Punjabis) to get votes. “The PPP never fanned provincialism to gain political mileage,” he said.

The former governor further said Nawaz Sharif made a victory speech even before the results of the polls were announced which cast doubts on the fairness of the whole exercise.

Khosa said the PPP had made a request to the Election Commission not to include the Lahore Development Authority and Wasa employees in the polling staff as they would favour the PML-N but it was not entertained. He said the PPP’s mandate had been stolen under a conspiracy.

Flanked by Samina Ghurki and Navid Chaudhry, Latif Khosa said liberal parties - PPP, MQM and ANP – were not allowed to run their election campaigns. He said the DCOs would not allow them holding the rallies because of security concerns.

He, however, admitted the PPP government failed to control loadshedding and inflation and people were not happy with it.

Khosa said Bilawal Bhutto was reorganising the party and the PPP would continue playing its role in strengthening democracy in the country.

Meanwhile, PPP leader Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo did not complain about rigging.

Talking to reporters, Wattoo said he accepted the defeat of the PPP and resigned from the party’s central president (Punjab) office. He said the PPP had made the ECP independent to hold free and fair election.