ISLAMABAD, Feb 16: The Election Commission has said that all arrangements have been made to ensure that the general election is held in a free, fair and transparent manner.

“No individual or group will be allowed to rig the polls and whoever is found guilty of rigging will be taken to task strictly,” Election Commission Secretary Kunwar Mohammad Dilshad told delegations of international observers from Saarc, United States, Jordan, Liberia, Morocco Japan and other countries, which called on him and discussed poll-related matters.

He claimed that all political parties had been provided a level-playing field for their election campaign. “The accusations of pre-poll rigging were, therefore, uncalled for,” he said.

“We have established complaint cells in the offices of all provincial Election Commissioners, including Islamabad, to address the complaints. As yet we have completed the scrutiny of about 1,500 complaints on code of conduct violations submitted by various candidates. The district and sessions judges have conducted a thorough scrutiny of all complaints and found that most of them were not genuine,” he said.

He rejected allegations about misuse of postal ballot papers as baseless, saying that there was a set procedure for getting the postal ballots on a prescribed form. This year 1.681 million postal ballots had been printed and according to the information received from across the country by the due date of December 28, about 80,000 postal ballots were issued.

He said during the elections in 2002, 54,062 postal ballots had been issued.

Briefing observers on the procedure for counting of votes, Mr Dilshad said that a transparent system would be adopted for consolidation of official results.

The presiding officer shall immediately undertake counting of votes at the polling stations at the close of polling in the presence of election/Polling Agents or observers. He will follow the procedure prescribed in Section 38 of the Representation of the People Act, 1976, read with Rules 23, 24 & 25 of the Representation of the People (Conduct of Elections) Rules, 1977. He shall prepare carbonised copies of the Statement of the Count on Form-XIV as well as Statement of Ballot Paper Account on Form-XV, obtain signatures of Polling Agents and supply copies thereof to the polling agents. He shall also affix a copy of Statement of Count (Form XIV) outside the polling station for public information.

He shall write the votes secured by each candidate in words and figures in the Statement of the Count. He shall then put a copy of Statement of the Count in an envelope, seal it and arrange to send it to the Returning Officer by the quickest possible means. He shall also put one copy each of Statement of the Count (Form-XIV) as well as Statement of Ballot Paper Account (Form-XV), duly sealed, in the polling bag together with such packet and other record, as required under Section 38(15) of the Act, for preservation in the Treasury.

The Returning Officer on receipt of Statements of the Count from the Presiding Officers shall sum-up the total for the constituency in the presence of candidates, their election agents and observers. He will obtain signatures of candidates or their election agents on the preliminary result prepared by him and supply a copy to them. He shall then announce preliminary result of constituency locally and affix a copy thereof outside his office for public information.

The Returning Officer shall convey the preliminary result to Election Commission Secretariat, Islamabad over telephone and shall confirm it through telefax, as per result tally sheets. The Provincial Election Commissioners shall ensure that telefax and telephone facilities are available with all Returning Officers under their jurisdiction.

In all, 64,176 polling stations with 170,174 polling booths have been established all over the country. For the purpose, 572,000 personnel have been appointed by the concerned Returning Officers. Complete list of the polling stations have also been uploaded on the commission’s website.

He said the computerised electoral rolls were also available on the website.