LAHORE, June 19: First secretary of Japanese embassy in Islamabad Katsunori Ashida visited Lahore on Tuesday to know politicians and public’s views about the forthcoming general election.

He called on opposition leader in Punjab Assembly Qasim Zia, Punjab PML-N president Zulfikar Khosa, foreign affairs coordinator Muhammad Mahdi and Lahore Jamaat-i-Islami general secretary Amirul Azim.

Mr Mahdi said his party’s top priority was restoration of constitution as it was on October 12, 1999 and not the polls.

The PML-N believed that fair and free elections were possible only after return of armed forces to barracks, he added.

Mr Azim informed him of tactics used for rigging polls, like printing of extra ballot papers, issue of result sheets prone to forgery, etc.

Earlier, Mr Ashida visited Gowalmandi to have lunch at the food street as well as exchanging views with the general public there.

He told Dawn that almost all the people he met at the food street were pessimistic about the transparency in polls. “In their view the polling process here is more selection than election.” —Staff Reporter