ISLAMABAD: Mushahid Hussain Sayed, secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) has joined the ranks of those who have come out in support of Imran Khan’s rigging allegations against the former chief justice.

On Saturday, the senator revealed that retired Justice Riaz Kayani, the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) member from Punjab, had admitted after the elections that returning officers (ROs) reported directly to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and were not under the commission’s control.

Speaking at a consultative session on reforms in the ECP, hosted by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Mr Hussain said that this conversation had taken place when he and PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain met with Justice Kayani, in the presence of other ECP members, at the commission’s headquarters in Islamabad.

The disclosure comes days after the ECP rejected objections against the former chief justice’s address to ROs on the eve of the polls and denied allegations that he had appointed and influenced the ROs.

Speakers at HRCP event say time is ripe for electoral reforms

Commenting on these ‘revelations’, Mudassir Rizvi, head of programmes at the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) told Dawn that despite the senator’s claims, the appointment of returning officers, under Section 7 of the Representation of Peoples’ Act 1976, is a function specifically allotted to the ECP.

“If they were influenced by anyone else, that is a matter worth investigating and the responsibility lies squarely on the commission’s shoulders,” he said.

Mushahid Hussain said then-Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Fakharuddin G Ebrahim was in Karachi at the time. He said before the 2013 general elections, he met the CEC and found him to be “isolated and a hostage to members of the ommission.

“It appeared as if there had been a soft coup against him from within the ECP”, Mr Hussain remarked.

He regretted that the ECP was lacking logistically, financially and administratively, which makes it an appendage to the executive, judiciary or military in case of military rule, with its role reducing to that of a post office. “We need an election commission which has spine”, he stressed.

He also asked questioned the stipulation that the chief election commissioner has to be from the judiciary.

He said there should be a room in the law to appoint any other competent public figure as well.

He also opined that all core polling staff should be from ECP’s own cadre and proposed the establishment of an Election Commission service of Pakistan.

Underlining the need to introduce meaningful electoral reforms, he said “Thanks to sit-ins, electoral reforms are now on the national agenda”.

Senator Afrasiab Khattak of the Awami National Party said that preventing a party from running its electoral campaign was also a form of pre-poll rigging. He recalled that the ANP was not only the target of terrorist attacks, were also harassed by police and other law enforcement agencies.

Senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo of the National Party said that no elections in the country’s history had been without controversial. “Our people are not educated about elections and they have not been told about value of their votes”, he remarked.

Terming the 2013 general polls ‘totally mismanaged’, he said that the time was ripe to pursue electoral reforms.

Participants at the event also called for redefining the parameters of qualification and disqualification clauses of the constitution. They were of the view that Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution, which deal with a person’s eligibility to contest elections, should be reviewed to make them meaningful and workable.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2014