MANAMA: With the explosive revelations of the senior bureaucrat that the general elections of 2013 were systematically rigged, the departure of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Government has become imminent.
Additional Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan Mohammed Afzal Khan told the ARY TV that the 2013 general elections were rigged with the knowledge of the top brass in the government.
“Earlier I was suspicious about the rigging but now I am confident that there have been rigging in the general elections,” Mr Khan told the ARY anchor Mubashar Luqman during an evening talk show.
Mr Khan, who was one of the top seven officials at the Election Commission of Pakistan, who were directly responsible for holding the fair, free and impartial elections in Pakistan, said that the Chief Election Commissioner Justice Retired Fakharudin G. Ebrahim had kept blind eye on all irregularities during the general electoral process in 2013.
Mr Khan said that the names of the Election Commission members were given by all provinces made it suspicious from the day one.
“Through a systematic and pre planned rigging, the Government has stolen the mandate of the people of Pakistan,” he said, adding that how the Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan made a public statement on the floor of the National Assembly that 60,000 to 70,000 votes in each constituency were unverifiable or unaccounted for.
“This statement is enough to make the elections null and void as the Interior Minister has no access to the sealed ballots which are property of the Election Commission of Pakistan,” Mr Khan added.
The Election Commission is the constitutional entity, made up of one Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and four Election Commission Members that has the authority and responsibility of conducting elections.
The ECP is the organization responsible to assist the Election Commission in implementing its policies and decisions.
The ECP has offices throughout the country at the federal, provincial, divisional and district levels. While the Election Commission is headed by the
CEC, the executive side of the ECP is headed by the Secretary of the ECP.
The CEC and the Members of the Election Commission are appointed for five-year terms and cannot be removed, except through the Supreme Judicial Council; the same procedure used to remove Judges of the Superior Courts.
The members of the 2013 Election Commission were Chief Election Commissioner Justice (Retd) Fakharudin G. Ebrahim Member, Punjab Justice (Retd) Riaz Kiyani Member, Sindh Justice (Retd) Muhammad Roshan Essani Member, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Justice (Retd) Shahazad Akbar Khan
Member, Balochistan Justice (Retd) Fazal-ur-Rehman.
“Election Commission’s member from Punjab Justice (Retd) Riaz Kiyani is responsible for destrying and sabotaging the General Elections of 2013,” Mr Khan added.