LAHORE, Sept 3: People want all opposition parties to get united and launch a movement against dictatorship, a PML-N leader said here on Saturday. Information Secretary Siddiqul Farooq said at a news conference that in case the parties failed to play their role, they would lose the trust of the masses. He said the PML-N would go ahead even if other parties did not take part in the proposed movement.

The PML-N leader also issued a white-paper against the alleged rigging in the local elections. Rigging in the presence of military and paramilitary forces was so obvious, he said, that even the federal cabinet had to confess it at its Aug 31 meeting. He said various ministers had also pointed finger at the chief ministers of Punjab and Sindh.

The PML-N leader said the ruling party-backed candidates had been provided with 500 to 700 ballot papers to enable them to outvote their rivals. Reports of bogus ID cards and stamps’ recovery from various places had already been published by the media, he said.

Despite all manipulations, he said, in those cases in which the ruling party candidates were lagging behind, their results were withheld until their defeat was converted into victory.

Mr Farooq criticized the acting chief election commissioner for using the 2001 electoral rolls, depriving some four million eligible people of their right to vote.

He alleged that the government transferred officials, used development funds and did many other things to influence the election results.

Questioning the validity of the polls, the PML-N leader said even the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan had rejected the results as bogus. Many other institutions had also expressed reservations about the fairness of the polls, he added.

Mr Farooq said 6,779 complaints had been received by the election commission, but the acting CEC had yet to redress them.