Daily Times

Sir: Most of the mainstream political parties and other organisations have submitted their evidence of alleged rigging in the general elections 2013 to the recently constituted three-member Judicial Commission. Needless to state that the Commission will minutely review the rigging proofs provided by political parties to determine whether the elections were systematically rigged or not. However, at the same time, I am certain that none of the political parties including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), Awami National Party (ANP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) have submitted any evidence of rigging against each other in Dir and Buner constituencies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). In fact, some different sort of rigging took place in these constituencies where women were barred from casting their votes under written or verbal agreements reached among the contesting candidates representing all the above mentioned parties. Though these written agreements appeared in the media soon after the elections, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) did not take any action to declare these results null and void. Similar agreements were inked or verbally managed for PK-94, PK-95, PK-78 (Buner) and PK-80 (Swat). Most of these seats, including PK-95, were won by the JI which later became a senior partner in the KP government. Civil society organisations including Fafen wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner to take action against all those parties who either promoted such agreements or turned a blind eye on purpose. As per data filed by Returning Officers (ROs) for NA-32 (Upper Dir), only one woman voter has cast her vote out of 138,910 female voters. The situation in Buner was not different wherein only 17,655 women voters managed to cast their votes out of 164,821 registered female voters. JI Ameer Sirajul Haq defended the barring of women in an interview. He stated that militants were planning to use female suicide bombers to attack polling stations. We cannot comment on JI’s stance on suicide bombers’ planning as they may have more accurate ‘insider’ news. However, why was this excuse not applicable for male polling stations? As per recorded statistics, out of hundreds of suicide bombing attacks all across Pakistan, very rarely has any female bomber been deployed.

It is very obvious that no political party will raise this issue as they were all directly or indirectly involved in this hateful practice. We request the Judicial Commission to look into this issue and order the ECP to investigate what actually happened in Upper and Lower Dir and Buner. Though it is a cumbersome exercise, data submitted by ROs for individual female polling stations would make it clear if women were barred from casting their votes. If justice is delivered even after two years, it is never too late.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail
Saudi Arabia