ISLAMABAD: The election tribunals formed to adjudicate upon petitions filed after the 2013 polls are likely to dispose of all the pending cases by the end of this year.

A senior official at the Election Commission told Dawn that only about 70 election petitions were pending before 14 tribunals comprising retired district and session judges and most of the cases were in advanced stages.

“The tribunals are moving at a good pace and all the petitions are most likely to be decided by the end of the year,” he said.

Referring to a recent decision by an election tribunal in Karachi declaring former Sindh chief minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi as winning candidate from a Dadu constituency (PS-76) where a by-election was already announced, the official said the ECP had recalled the notification for the by-poll scheduled for Nov 29 and through a separate notice notified him as winner.

Mr Jatoi, a PML-N candidate, had lost to Parveen Aziz Junejo of PPP by a margin of over 34,000 votes. Mr Jatoi secured 22,803 votes against Ms Junejo’s 56,938.

Mr Jatoi had challenged Ms Junejo’s election, but before the election petition could be decided, she had to resign after developing differences with her husband and PPP leaders.

She alleged that Faryal Talpur, sister of PPP co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari, had forced her to resign.

In reply to a question, the ECP official said the tribunal can hold an election void after the resignation by the winning candidate.

Since an election petition was already pending with the tribunal, proceedings continued even though Ms Junejo’s resignation had been accepted by the Sindh Assembly speaker, he explained.

After the acceptance of Ms Junejo’s resignation, the ECP had announced by-election on the seat on Oct 23, which has now been recalled.

Published in Dawn, November 22th, 2014