HYDERABAD: The Sindh United Party (SUP) chairman Syed Zain Shah has said that though Pakistan has never had transparent elections the Feb 8 polls are the worst in the country’s chequered history. If elections were to be ‘managed’ on such a massive scale then what was the need for staging this ‘farce’, he remarked.

Shah said at a meeting of party workers here on Tuesday the country’s Chief Election Commissioner committed election fraud right from delimitations to holding of polls.

He said that Pakistan Peoples Party was made a ‘facilitator’ in return for bargaining on resources of Sindh and Balochistan. The SUP would hold a national conference in Hyderabad on April 20 against usurpation of resources and threats to the province, he said.

He said that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s leadership had been held hostage since May 9 and demanded the government release all PTI leaders and activists. The state institutions were asking people to either join PPP or PML-N as power was being transferred to them, he said.

He said that PPP had been given ‘fake’ mandate for bargaining away resources and water of Sindh and Balochistan. Such actions would in the end prove to be highly detrimental to Pakistan’s integrity, he said.

Shah said that SUP was coordinating with other political parties over protests.

The party would become part of any forum which was created to fight against the election fraud, he said.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2024