I VOTED for Pakistan Tehreek Insaf, but these are the facts.

PTI candidates contested 200 National Assembly constituencies. Out of the 200 contestants, 50 candidates got their sureties confiscated i.e. they polled less than 1,000 votes. On 40 seats the PTI candidate got less than 2,000 votes. Thus of the remaining 110 constituencies that the PTI contested, it won only 32seats. On many NA seats that it contested, the PTI candidate lost by more than 40,000 votes.

No international poll had predicted a PTI victory and almost all polls had predicted the PML-N victory. Also no international observer said there was mass-scale rigging. Of course, there may have been some rigging but not on the scale that the PTI alleges.

Usman Hassan
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2014