Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
WASHINGTON DC, 12th Feb. Pakistan President Arif Alvi on Sunday said that despite the Election Commission’s lofty claims, the Election Commission of Pakistan’s new Election Management System failed the country.
Arif Alvi expressed his frustration over the delayed election results and stated that if the Electronic Voting Machines had been in use during the general elections on February 8, the nation would not be facing this current crisis, Geo News reported.
The election regulator has yet to release the preliminary results for every constituency, after 72 hours after the polls closed.
President Alvi said in a post on social media platform X “Had EVMs been there today, my dear beloved Pakistan would have been spared this crisis.”
Alvi recalled the fight for the EVMs waged by the previous PTI-led government, said that the entire endeavor which involved more than 50 meetings at the presidency alone–was abandoned.
“Remember ‘our’ long struggle for EVMs. EVM had paper ballots that could be counted separately by hand (like it is being done today) but it also had a simple electronic calculator/counter of each vote button pressed,” he said.
He said that the totals of every candidate would have been available and printed within five minutes of the closing of the poll if the machines were used, GEO News reported.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) staged a protest over alleged rigging and alteration of results in Sindh’s PS-22 constituency.
“Our [JUI-F’s] candidate was made to lose via [deliberate] change of results,” JUI-F leader Rashid Mehmood Soomro said.
“We have won by [margin of] 7,000 votes as per the Form 45s in our possession,” he said while calling for fresh elections in multiple constituencies, according to Geo News.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has given a call for a nationwide protest on Sunday to protect the sanctity of the vote as independent candidates are in the lead with 100 seats after the delay in election results.
According to the report, the decision came after the party’s core committee meeting was held and it was announced to hold ‘peaceful protests’ across the country to protect the sanctity of the vote.
The meeting deliberated on election results and the future course of action.
The core committee also discussed matters related to affiliation with specific political parties.
Important decisions were made during the meeting, which the party said would be implemented after consultation with PTI founder Imran Khan.
