KARACHI, Oct 13: The chief of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Altaf Husain, has claimed that the establishment has rigged the elections in a big way.

“The establishment has tried to prove that Pakistan is a country of extremists as it has enabled the rejected religious parties to get seats in assemblies,” he said in a press release issued on Sunday.

Speaking to workers by phone at the Muttahida headquarters on Saturday night, he alleged that in the past the establishment had also rigged elections, but this time round it had outdone itself. “Rigging was done to such an extent that in one case a presiding officer who had declared a Muttahida candidate the winner by giving him a signed certificate afterwards declared him a loser. For instance, Nasreen Jalil was declared the winner in the presence of newsmen after the counting of votes. In the presence of newsmen, she received a congratulatory call from the Governor’s House. But overnight the results were changed and the candidate was declared a loser.”

He claimed that in PIB Colony on those seats where Muttahida candidates had won they had been declared losers afterwards. “The establishment rigged the elections on these seats and declared the candidates of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal winners. Similarly, in the interior of Sindh, such as Larkana, Jacobabad, and Dadu, the Muttahida had received a large number of votes, but their candidates had been declared to have lost the elections. Even on these seats where the Muttahida had won, the establishment had done its utmost to deprive the Muttahida candidates of victory.”

The Muttahida chief insisted that the government declared the results of the elections null and void and held another round of elections under the supervision of the United Nations. “The government of President Gen Pervez Musharraf failed to hold the elections in a transparent and fair manner. If the elections held under the supervision of the United Nations we fail to win seats, we will accept our defeat large-heartedly. And if we win the elections, the establishment will have to accept the result with magnanimity.”

“The rigging by the establishment was so extensive that the European Union monitoring teams and human-rights organizations and the entire world had called the elections a drama,” he emphasized.

APPEAL: The Muttahida chief said: “I request the Secretary- General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, the President of the United States, George Bush, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, the European heads of states and others to take immediate and serious notice of naked rigging in the general elections held on Oct 10.”

He requested them to urge the president of Pakistan to declare these elections null and void.