ISLAMABAD: Believing that the country has entered the election mode, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Tuesday handed over a report on the alleged rigging in the 2018 general elections to the chief election commissioner, urging the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to ‘take punitive action’ against those involved in ‘glaring theft of the entire general elections’.

The “Rigging Report”, which the party had prepared some two and a half years ago, was handed over to CEC Sikandar Sultan Raja by a three-member PPP delegation comprising Taj Haider, Farhatullah Babar and Nayyar Hussain Bokhari. Mr Babar and Mr Bokhari are the secretary generals of the two factions of the party, which is registered with the ECP with two different names.

“Sir, crimes once committed are never time-barred and in the background of the punitive actions that the ECP has already taken against violations of Elections Act 2017, we look forward to further punitive actions on the theft of general election 2018,” says the letter accompanying the report that has described in detail “the pre-poll, polling day and the post-poll rigging” committed allegedly by persons belonging to the administration and security institutions.

Calls for taking ‘punitive action against manipulators’

“Unfortunately, the polling staff appointed by the ECP miserably failed to stop these crimes. It is also possible that some of the appointed staff became partners in these crimes,” it stated.

According to Mr Babar, besides the data collected by the PPP Central Election Cell itself, the report also includes relevant extracts from various reports by national and international observers including Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) about the 2018 elections.

Though the party has decided not to make the report public due to some unexplained reasons, the PPP’s central media office handout about PPP delegation’s meeting with the CEC provided glimpses of the content of the nearly 100-page report.

It pointed out that only 128 forms out of total 78,471 Form-45 (result of vote count) had been signed by the polling agents who named the candidates they were representing. The ECP website carried around 5,000 signed forms, but except the 128 forms none mentioned the names of candidates and their political affiliation, it said, indicating that it undermined the authenticity of the signatures. Besides, it added, hundreds of thousands of witnesses to the fact all polling agents were forcibly thrown out of polling stations at the time of vote count and preparation of results besides other crimes under the Law committed with glaring impunity. It mentioned that in a massive number of constituencies, especially the PPP’s strongholds, the results took days to be out.

The PPP delegation while talking to the CEC explained how ‘punitive action’ against those who rigged the 2018 elections was importance to ensure free and fair elections in the future.

Mr Babar told Dawn that actions taken by the ECP in recent months, including the Daska by-polls, local bodies election and in the case of Dera Ismail Khan mayor’s election, encouraged them to hand over the report on alleged rigging to the CEC.

He said they told the CEC that they were leaving it to the ECP as to what action it would take on the basis of the report. He said the PPP had shared its concern over the latest move of the PTI government to change the Elections Act 2017 through a presidential ordinance.

Asked why the party decided to keep the report ‘confidential’, Mr Babar said if the ECP considered it “appropriate”, it could make the report public. “At this point of time, we do not consider it necessary,” he said. He said the party had printed several copies of the report to make it public, but after consultations decided not to release it. He said the party would wait for the response of the ECP before making any decision to make it public.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2022