KARACHI: The Jamaat-i-Islami on Friday staged a protest on main Sharea Faisal against alleged rigging in the local government by-elections and accused the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party of “manipulating” the results with the connivance of the administration.

The by-polls were held on Thursday on 10 vacant seats of union committee chairmen, vice-chairmen and councillors in different districts of the metropolis.

The PPP has swept the elections as it bagged eight seats, including one in Liaquatabad Town which was previously won by the JI.

The JI, which won two seats, cried foul over the results and held a protest demonstration near the Nursery bus stop to denounce the “rigged and manipulated results”.

Stages sit-in on Sharea Faisal; vows to expand movement until results are corrected

Interestingly, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf which had raised objections over the electoral process during the Thursday’s voting, preferred to keep mum as no reaction on the by-polls results came from the party.

JI leader Monem Zafar while addressing the protest demonstration on Sharea Faisal warned that his party wouldn’t allow anymore “fake mandate” and it would expand its protest drive if the results were not rectified in line with the people’s aspirations.

The JI leader held the PPP, the Election Commission of Pakistan and law enforcement agencies responsible for ‘change’ of the results. He said that the JI would not accept fake results and would resort to agitation as well as taking legal action.

He said that the Karachiites had voted overwhelmingly for the JI but the PPP continued its “legacy of electoral terrorism” and used all “unfair means” to convert it’s “defeat” into victory.

He alleged that the PPP had proven once again that it believed in fascism, mandate theft, hooliganism, undemocratic and unfair means by changing the results.

“Once again, the Forms-11, -12 and -13 have been tampered with by corrupt officials on the behest of the PPP to bring them an undue victory that they never had,” said Mr Zafar.

He said that continuous tampering with results and rigging elections had created a distrust among masses in electoral procedure and that was a dangerous.

Detailing the alleged rigging in Karachi by-polls, he held the Election Commission of Pakistan responsible and claimed that it was hand in glove with the PPP.

He referred to the UC 7 of Model Town, where he claimed the JI had won in the last elections with 4,400 votes and the PPP bagged 8th position on the score board with only 650 votes. Similarly, he said, in the last general elections, the JI had received over 24,000 votes from the constituency which comprises the UC against 1,836 votes taken by the PPP.

He said that in the by-polls, the results of the UC were put on hold for eight hours and later the PPP results were changed from 1,086 to 4,362, whereas the JI’s results were changed from over 3,000 to 2415.

Talking about the by-polls in Liaquatabad Town, he said that the JI had received some 3,000 votes against mere 700 votes by the PPP but in the by-elections, the results were tampered with to bestow victory on the PPP.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2024