Daily Times

Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Secretary Babar Yaqoob said on Thursday that the authority had received 675 complaints on the day of voting for general elections.

Most of the complaints were about slow service by 8300, the number for acquiring information related to polling booths, he said.

On delay in announcement of election results, Babar Yaqoob said in the 2013 general elections too, almost three days were spent on compilation of the results. He said the ECP’s computerized result transmission system developed a glitch, causing delays in compilation and announcement of results. He denied all allegations of vote count manipulation. “There is no conspiracy or attempt to influence the results … it is just a software failure,” he said.

“Only 25,000 out of 85,000 officials could electronically send results due to failure of the results transmission system software,” he said, adding the software had not been tested before the elections. “This was for the first time we used RTS in election,” he said.

About rigging allegations, he said the commission would look into the claims.”The results were not withheld as candidates and political parties have claimed. Actually the result has not been prepared so far,” he said.”Around 82 percent results have been received from across the country,” he said, adding that returning officers have announced almost 90 percent results. The ECP has to ensure that the results are correct before releasing them, he concluded.

Published in Daily Times, July 27^th 2018.