KARACHI: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday declared Saeed Ghani of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) victorious in the PS-114 by-election and disposed of the petition for a recount of votes by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) advising the opposition party to approach the election tribunal for redress of its grievances.

In its brief order, the ECP directed MQM candidate Kamran Tessori to approach the election tribunal to seek relief regarding his plea. The MQM-P last week challenged before the ECP the victory of Mr Ghani in the July 9 by-election on the provincial assembly seat in Karachi’s Mehmoodabad area, asking the ECP to order a recount of the votes of the entire constituency.

The ECP in an immediate response withheld the notification of the PPP candidate’s victory. With the fresh ECP notification, the stay on issuance of a notification about Mr Ghani’s victory in the by-election stands vacated.

MQM-P to approach election tribunal to seek redress

The PPP’s Saeed Ghani had bagged 23,840 votes defeating MQM-P’s Kamran Tessori, who had secured 18,106 votes.

The MQM had alleged that the PS-114 by-election was “widely rigged” by the PPP by using the Sindh government machinery and the local police. Referring to a Supreme Court verdict, the MQM candidate and applicant Mr Tessori had said that the by-election was held in violation of the mandate given by the SC in its historic judgement, through which it declared the result of the 2013 general election void because of vote rigging.

Referring to the Supreme Court’s verdict, the applicant said the SC pointed out 27 polling stations — 10, 12 to 15, 23, 24, 32, 37, 42 to 46, 65 to 69 and 83 to 90 — in which rigging had taken place. While Mr Ghani termed the ECP’s decision a ‘victory for democracy’, MQM-P leader Dr Farooq Sattar called it “unfortunate” and announced that his party would approach the election tribunal in line with the ECP directives.

“It’s very unfortunate but we would approach the tribunal now and keep the right to move the high court and Supreme Court as well to pursue our case,” said Dr Sattar. “It could have [been] much better for the constituency and the voters if the Election Commission had issued orders for an audit of polled votes by Nadra [National Database and Registration Authority]. We feel very sad about this decision but still [haven’t lost] hope and would approach every legal forum for our case.”

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2017