ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has, once again, accused the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) of playing to the gallery and “concealing the evidence” that could prove the May 2013 elections were, in fact, heavily rigged.

In a press statement on Wednesday, party chief Imran Khan condemned the ECP for “covering up various issues, including the printing of extra ballot papers”, which he claimed to have exposed at a press conference on Nov 28.

The PTI media wing released Mr Khan’s statement, detailing how the ECP had been changing its stance over the past couple of months, particularly on the matter of printing more ballot papers than there were registered voters, which the PTI leadership believed were used to engineer election results in favour of the ruling PML-N.

“It is important to point out...that on August 18, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, in the presence of ECP Secretary Ishtiaq A. Khan, said that only 180 million ballot papers were printed,” the statement said.

“Then, on Nov 28, when Mr Khan exposed the fact that at least 5.3 million extra ballot papers were printed, the ECP stated in the press that ‘only 0.8 million extra ballot papers were printed’. However, in another retraction, the ECP said on Dec 1, that ‘9.3 million extra ballot papers were printed’,” the statement said.

“As stated in our press conference on Nov 28...PTI has much more information, which when published, will punch holes in all of ECP’s stories, but it will be presented [before] a duly constituted investigating commission under the Supreme Court... to look at all aspects of rigging,” the PTI leader maintained.

The PTI wants a special judicial commission with special ToRs to be set up. The commission, PTI insists, should have authority of the executive to conduct an investigation into allegations of electoral rigging.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2014