ISLAMABAD, May 13: The European Union’s Election Observation Mission has termed the May 11 elections ‘largely fair’ and praised the strong commitment demonstrated by the parties, candidates and voters to the democratic process despite high levels of militant attacks in some parts of the country.

The EU observers mostly rated the polling process as ‘satisfactory or good’ but they expressed concern over a lesser role of women in the election process and called for increasing their reserved seats in the assemblies.

Launching the mission’s preliminary statement here on Monday, its Chief Observer Michael Gahler said violence by non-state actors had unbalanced the playing field and considerably distorted the election process at some places.

According to the statement, there were 62 reported election related security incidents on the polling day, resulting in 64 deaths.

The voting process was rated as ‘poor or inadequate’ in nine per cent of the poling stations visited by the observers.

The mission said that the Election Commission’s late decision to extend the time for voting by an hour had caused confusion and it had not been officially announced on the ECP website.

It praised the Pakistani society for the success of the elections and said that while state authorities, political parties and the civil society had expressed strong commitment to the democratic process, militant groups had tried to sabotage it.

“The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups initially targeted certain political parties in three provinces in particular and then an increased number of parties across the country.

‘‘This deliberate attempt to disrupt the democratic process as a whole affected parties and candidates, voters, the election administration, the media and civil society,” Mr Gahler said.

He said there had been calls which declared the democratic system “un-Islamic” and called upon voters and polling staff not to participate in the elections.

The banned TTP had threatened to attack the places where electoral activities were taking place, he said.

The people had demonstrated their commitment to democratic governance and overcoming militant violence on the election day, he said.

“We saw a competitive process with twice as many candidates as there were in 2008,” he added.

However, the mission noted several shortcomings in the process. The irregularities ranged from absence of ink to presence of police personnel inside polling booths, although there had not been any evidence that they had interfered in the voting.

The EU mission was joined by three members of the European Parliament, led by Richard Howitt, who acted as short-term observers.

Mr Howitt said the holding of satisfactory elections would help forward Pakistan’s case for duty free exports to the EU under the Generalised System of Preferences-Plus.