KARACHI, Sept 8: Justice (retd) Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui, who was PML-N’s presidential candidate, has urged the Chief Election Commissioner to take notice of what he called ‘open violation’ of the secrecy of the ballot during polling in the NWFP assembly, when a number of legislator showed the marked ballot to some people before putting it into the box.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, he said it was a serious issue and there was enough evidence to declare the result of the polling in the NWFP assembly ‘null and void’.
He said that he expected the CEC to take action on the ‘blatant violation’ of the Constitution.
Justice Saeed said that when all the powers enjoyed by Pervez Musharraf had been passed on to Asif Ali Zardari the PPP should act more responsibly than other political parties.
He said that the PPP should honour its commitments, including its promises to restore the judiciary to its pre-Nov 3 position and scrap the 17th Amendment.
Justice Saeed, who was accompanied by PML-N leaders Salim Zia, Mamnoon Hussain and Zahid Rafique Butt, dispelled the impression that he had joined the PML-N or any other party.
He said the interest of Pakistan required that the PPP and the PML-N should take good decisions because their leadership was mature and capable of leading the country to stability and progress.
Describing the situation in Fata as grave, he said the US attacks had violated Pakistan’s sovereignty and there was need for a strategy to protect the country’s sovereignty, without recourse to confrontation with the US.
Referring to allegations levelled by Justice (retd) Sajjad Ali Shah, he said he also could accuse him of being a controversial person. He added that he was not in Islamabad when the Supreme Court was attacked. “I was holding a court.”
Expressing satisfaction over his performance in the presidential election, he said that he had secured 111 electoral votes in the National Assembly against 281 of Asif Ali Zardari, while in Balochistan where the ruling coalition had 61 strength in the house of 62, he bagged 2 votes against 59 and in the Punjab assembly he got 35 votes against 22 in favour of Mr Zardari. In the NWFP assembly, he received five votes against 56 for the winning candidate.
He said distribution of development funds during the election process was a wrong practice which should be stopped.
After the announcement of the election results, he said, he conceded that the results were fair, and there was a need to work collectively to steer the country out of the crisis it was facing.