Election rigging?

Capital suggestion
We have had ten general elections over the past 45 years. Over the past 15 years, we have seen the establishment of independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit election research and assessment organisations. The two that I hold in great regard are: the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) and the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat).
May 11, 2013 was Election Day. On May 22, election results were officially notified – and the candidates had until July 6, 2013 to file their election petitions. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) received a total of 411 petitions. Of the 411, a total of 26 were dismissed by the ECP while the remaining 385 were sent to election tribunals. As per data collected by Fafen, as of the last day of March 2015, election tribunals had disposed a total of 347 petitions; a disposal rate of 91 percent.
For the record, the PTI filed a total of 58 petitions against national and provincial assembly seats. Of the 58, a total of 30 petitions pertain to the National Assembly. For the record, as of July 6, 2013, the PTI had objections to a mere nine percent of National Assembly seats. For the record, as of July 6, 2013, the PTI’s accusation of a ‘conspiracy’ behind the entire election was nonexistent.
For the record, the PML-N actually filed a total of 66 petitions – eight more than the PTI (meaning that as of July 2013 the PML-N had more problems with the elections than did the PTI).
Of the 58 petitions filed by the PTI, a total of 44 have actually been disposed by various election tribunals; a disposal rate of 75 percent. Of the total number of petitions filed by the PTI, 23 have been dismissed as non-maintainable, 15 dismissed as not proved in trial, five dismissed for non-prosecution and one dismissed as withdrawn. Of all the petitions filed by the PTI, only two have been accepted by election tribunals.
Conclusion 1: the PTI’s accusation of a ‘conspiracy’ behind the general election was levelled after a full year from the date of the official notification of winning candidates. Conclusion 2: Of the 58 petitions filed by the PTI, election tribunals have so far accepted only two.
Pildat’s ‘A dispassionate analysis of how elections are stolen & will of the people is defeated’ is an authoritative assessment of eight general elections that took place between 1970 and 2002.
According to Pildat, there are three phases of electoral rigging: pre-poll rigging, polling day rigging and post poll rigging. Pre-poll rigging revolves around four factors: neutrality of the caretaker government, independence of the ECP, neutrality of the election administration staff and use of public resources to benefit some contestants.
Polling day rigging comprises five activities: tampering or stuffing ballot boxes, multiple voting, prevention of voting by certain persons, dishonest counting of votes and dishonest tabulation of results. Post poll rigging “generally refers to the absence of fair play in the formation of a government according to popular mandate.”
According to Pildat, the incidence of polling day rigging has been “low” in 1970, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997 and 2002. The only election with “high” polling day rigging has been 1977.
The odds are that the incidence of polling day rigging in Election 2013 was ‘low’. The odds are that the incidence of tampering or stuffing ballot boxes, multiple voting, prevention of voting by certain persons, dishonest counting of votes and dishonest tabulation was ‘low’. And the proof of all this lies in the very low number of petitions filed – and the decisions by election tribunals – compared to a thousand national and provincial assembly seats and the several thousand candidates who actually contested.
Conclusion 3: Contrary to common perception, polling day rigging in our general elections is ‘low’.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
Twitter: @saleemfarrukh