Political parties dispute result of five percent seats

ISLAMABAD: Though the Judicial Commission is probing “systematic manipulation of mandate in the entire 2013 election”, all the political parties that have submitted their “evidence” so far have only questioned the results of five percent of the National and provincial assembly seats.
A few political parties have challenged the election results of Karachi alone while a few restricted them to challenging the results in a few constituencies only. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, being the spearhead in hurling the rigging allegation, has only challenged the results of 5% constituencies while it accuses the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of hijacking its mandate from all the constituencies. With the evidence produced before the JC, no one has yet been able to provide any substantiated material on systematic manipulation of the mandate.
The general election was held on 849 National and provincial assemblies’ seats on May 11, 2013, of which results of 44 (maximum) constituencies have been disputed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Of these, 29 are National Assembly seats, 10 of the Punjab Assembly while two, one and two of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan Assemblies respectively.
The Pakistan People’s Party has disputed the results of only 10 constituencies (eight National Assembly and one each of the Punjab and Sindh assemblies), which is 1% of the total number of seats on which election was held in 2013. The Jamaat-e-Islami has generally questioned the election process in Karachi while specifically mentioning nine constituencies, four of the National Assembly and five of the Sindh Assembly.
The Mohajir Qaumi Movement has also questioned the election results of Karachi mainly (11 National Assembly seats and 16 provincial assembly seats). The People’s Muslim League has disputed the election results of one National Assembly seat and one provincial assembly seat only. The Awami National Party has requested to join the Judicial Commission’s inquiry.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which has been crying of theft of its mandate through systematic rigging, has also presented the results of 35 National Assembly constituencies where the rejected votes exceeded the margin of victory. These constituencies are not from the Punjab alone; five are in the KP, three in Fata, 15 in the Punjab, five in Sindh and seven in Balochistan. No single party has benefited from this trend of more rejected votes and less victory margin. Of these 35 constituencies, 12 were won by the PML-N, six by independent candidates, four by PPP, three by JUI-F and one each by PTI, APML, PML, PML-F, BNP, QWP, JI, PKMAP, ANP and NPP.
The PML-N was runner-up in seven of these 35 constituencies; independent candidates were runner-up in seven constituencies; the PPP was runner-up in six constituencies; the PTI was runner-up in six constituencies; the PML was runner-up in two constituencies; the JUI-F was runner up in two while BNP, JUI-N, MDM, NP, PKMAP were runner-up in one constituency each.
The PTI, according to its submissions before the Judicial Commission, will also present video evidence from different polling stations of various constituencies, including programmes aired by Geo, the television channel accused by Imran Khan of rigging the election.
Interestingly, the PTI candidates who lost elections in 200 National Assembly constituencies, never filed an election petition, and among those who filed the petitions, only two filed an appeal against the Election Tribunals. The PTI did not field candidates against 40 NA seats while its 93 candidates got their security deposits forfeited.
The ruling PML-N exceeded the PTI in disputing election to several seats of national and provincial assemblies. It filed 74 petitions with the ETs. It challenged 26 National Assembly seats, 23 seats of the Punjab Assembly, 11 Sindh Assembly seats, 10 KP legislature seats and four Balochistan Assembly seats.
Details reveal that 402 beaten contestants, who were either associated with political parties or independents, challenged the electoral results in their constituencies in the ETs.
The PTI filed as many as 61 petitions with the Election Tribunals. Of them, 31 candidates called into question the National Assembly seats, 25 Punjab Assembly seats, three Sindh Assembly seats and one seat each of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan assemblies. Thus the PTI only disputed 7% results from 849 constituencies before the Election Tribunals.
While having a close look at the results of May 11, 2013 election, one finds that the PTI did not field its candidates in 40 National Assembly constituencies while it was non-existent in 50% constituencies. The security deposits of PTI candidates were confiscated in 93 National Assembly constituencies. So technically, the PTI was non-existent in exactly 133 NA constituencies of the total 272.