News
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Tough time for ECP and Justice (r) Fakharuddin G EbrahimBy Shabbir Sarwar
IT is tough time for the Election Commission of Pakistan, as Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has issued a formal threat to the ECP while addressing his first press conference through videoconference fixing all responsibility of the ‘alleged rigging’ on it.
Now the ball is in the court of Justice (r) Fakharuddin G Ebrahim who, on the election day, in a slip of tongue had said that the ECP has have given a gift to the nation in the form of free and fair elections. However, the very next moment, realising the message of his statement, he made a correction, saying it was his and the whole election commission’s responsibility and an obligation to conduct free and fair election. However, he continued in a joyous tone and the overall impression was of victory, as the CEC said it was a day of celebrations and not exchange of arguments.
When the election commission was in a celebration mode many voters and committed Pakistanis were mourning the inability of the ECP to conduct free and fair elections despite support of 70,000 troops across the country and millions of officials of Rangers, police, Special Branch and volunteers. On the same night following an ECP high-level meeting in Islamabad, the worthy chief election commission accepted his failure to conduct free and fair election in Karachi. Is it enough just to accept the fault and let the people be ruled for whole five years by those people who are not their true representatives? What about many areas of Karachi DHA where the armed men did not allow entry of the ECP vehicles as well as the media?
A woman went to a polling station in Gulshan-e-Bahar, Karachi, to cast her vote. She decided to vote a candidate whom she considered the best among all contestants. She gave her thumb impression to the presiding officers and got two ballot papers, but suddenly a man brandishing a pistol appeared there and asked the woman to stamp on “kite”. Taking advantage of presence of some other voters she tried to slip to the other corner and vote for her chosen candidate, but the armed man grabbed her hand and stamped the sign of his choice on both the ballot papers and asked the woman to put the ballot into the box. The women, who had specially come from abroad to cast her vote and participate in the election, was amazed. She lost trust not only in the ECP but also in the whole election process. “I have shown my commitment by coming to Pakistan for election. Now I will never participate as a voter in the elections,” she remarked. Who is responsible for this?
In a video footage a man was seen holding many ballot papers in his hand, but when he saw the camera he fled the polling station in the presence of policemen, who did not bother to stop or catch him. Despite knowing the ground reality and state of lawlessness in the port city, which forces stopped the ECP from forwarding the request of army deployment inside the polling stations? Thousands of voters comprising women and children gathered at Teen Talwar waving PTI and national flags in their peaceful protest against rigging when groups of armed men appeared and started aerial firing to end the peaceful protest.
Later the party’s leader hurled an open threat, saying, “If he ordered his men there would be sword fight at Teen Talwar (three sword).” In this atmosphere of fear and terrorism, it is welcoming that thousands of people and families have dared to come out and show their strength against all the wrongdoings in their city. Media has not been spared and is in panic and fear. The media channels which even slightly went against the agenda of a special political party in Karachi received the gift of a complimentary breakfast from the party next morning along with a list of complaints and demands.
The media persons ate their fill and remained mum. Out of fear for their life and for the safety of their family they could not dare speak against rigging openly, putting journalistic ethics aside. “There are many problems for the media of Karachi, which you don’t know and cannot understand while being in Lahore,” said a senior analyst of one of best TV news channels. There were many problems in Punjab also. The polling staff at many stations could not start polling even at 9:00 am.
The voters of the DHA EME sector came to know through an SMS to the election commission hotline 8300 that their votes were in a primary school situated at Shahpur Kanjran, Multan Road, Lahore. When they went there the presiding officer told them there votes where not registered there. The family, comprising of all female members, searched for their votes at all the nearby polling stations but in vain. They again sent an SMS to 8300 and again came to know that there vote was in the same primary school. The committed voters empowered with the feeling of importance of their votes spent more than four hours searching for their polling station and finally came to know that there vote was at a polling station established in the EME society.
Why was this negligence done on the part of the ECP? Why was there a difference in the hotline information and on ground implementation plan of the ECP? Who is responsible for depriving many people of the right to vote because they could not find their polling station? A big one, why has the ECP so far not issued any notice to the PML-N whose main leadership, including Mian Nawaz Sharif, Mian Shahbaz and Mariam Nawaz, appeared before the media at around 11pm on the polling day for a victory speech in violation of the ECP code of conduct? This puts an immense pressure on the presiding officers and other polling staff busy in vote counting and affected the results. Now it is time for the ECP to respond positively to the claims of rigging and conduct a transparent re-evaluation of votes through NADRA thumb impressions verification, otherwise many enthusiastic voters would lose their trust in the election commission as well as in democracy.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk