ISLAMABAD, Sept 7: The Pakistan Muslim League (N) said on Saturday it was documenting evidences of what it called a record of pre-poll rigging and the party would make it public soon.

“All the evidences of pre-poll rigging are being recorded and will be made public at an appropriate time,” PML(N) Chairman Raja Zafarul Haque, who has a vast electoral experience since the 1985 party-less polls, told Dawn in an interview.

“Interference by the government has never been on such a scale as we have witnessed this time,” he said, urging the Musharraf government to hold free, fair and impartial elections on Oct 10.

He said fair and transparent elections would be a great service to the nation while the rigging would cast long shadows over the credibility and the future of elected institutions. It would also result in a chaos and prove counter-productive for democracy, he added.

Raja Zafarul Haque, a frail man in late sixties, has to steer the PML(N) in its most difficult time since its creation in 1990, while party leader Nawaz Sharif lives in exile in Saudi Arabia, and the government does not allow its new president Shahbaz Sharif to return home.

PML(N) chief said the controversial April 30 referendum, which Mr Musharraf held to extend his presidency for five more years, had placed a big question mark on the present regime’s credibility at home and abroad.

Giving details of the alleged pre-poll rigging, which the government denies, he said the official might was being flagrantly employed to force leaders and workers of the opposition parties, particularly of the PML(N), to switch over to what he called the “king’s party”.

Opposition candidates are being threatened with prosecution under accountability laws or allured through lucrative offers, including ministerial slots in the future government, he said.

He said candidates of the “king’s party” — a reference to pro-Musharraf PML (Quaid-i-Azam) faction led by Mian Mohammad Azhar — were spared of accountability turning a blind eye to their alleged corruption. Maximum accommodation had also been shown to them in the demarcation of constituencies.

The government, he said, was “blatantly flouting” the ban imposed by the chief elections commissioner (CEC) on pre-election postings and transfers of officials.

He denied a government assertion that opposition parties and candidates had not filed appeals against the demarcation of electoral constituencies within the time-limit allowed by the CEC, and said most of a large number of such appeals had been summarily rejected. “Some of the constituencies were altered at the eleventh hour without giving adequate time for filing appeals.”

When asked if there could be a mechanism to check rigging that opposition parties say will be done through computer cells at the governors’ houses at provincial capitals and the President House in Islamabad, he said: “You just cannot check it.”

He called the recent understanding between the PML(N) and its former arch-rival Pakistan People’s Party to cooperate with each other a good omen for politics and the future democratic set-up, saying their mutual hostility had been a major reason for instability of the democratic system in the recent past.

“We are successful to a very large extent in bringing about a working relationship, an environment of mutual respect and accommodation with the PPP,” Raja Zafarul Haque said. “Parties may have separate manifestos and programmes, but political differences should not turn into personal enmity.”

He said it was premature yet to think of a PML-PPP coalition government if the two parties won a parliamentary majority, but that such a possibility could not be ruled out and could be looked into after the elections.

He said the PML(N) had achieved significant progress in seat adjustments with the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal of six Islamic parties while a similar adjustment with the PPP was under discussion.

Mr Zafarul Haque disagreed with a view that seat adjustment between the PPP and PML(N) would not be easy for workers of the two parties to swallow because of a history of their mutual bitterness, and said their enthusiasm and fraternity at an ARD public meeting on April 27 was unprecedented. Majority of workers were then seen wearing badges and carrying flags of both parties.

PML(N) chairman was optimistic about the success of his party’s candidates, and said: “I feel the atmosphere is very encouraging and people are very receptive.”

He said common people’s problems like price hike, unemployment, lack of educational and health facilities, provision of expeditious and inexpensive justice and security concerns would dominate the election campaign.

About the fate of recent constitutional amendments made by President Musharraf, he said: “Future of such laws and amendments which are specific to a ruler has always been tied to the reign of that particular individual.”