Sir: The ECP made some contradictory claims after all the votes had been cast, according to reports in the media. While on the one hand they said that the “Elections have been 100% fair and transparent”, on the other hand they also added “strict action will be taken against officers who violated-election-laws”. This wasn’t the only contradictory news available in the news media, with photos of Imran Khan openly stamping his ballot papers going viral across social media. It seems like the new Prime Minister was on a social visit, rather than voting in one of the most momentous election days in history. But it seems that when it comes to Imran Khan, everything has been contradictory. An example can be seen in the intense grilling that the Sharifs received over the use of the Calibri font, yet Khan completely escaped such jibes for submitting fake municipal certificate in regards to his Bani Gala property. The elections raised several questions when the voting finally closed and the results started pouring in. People questioned the ECP’s decision not to extend the time for voting, and found it suspicious that NADRA completely denied the claims of the ECP that the glitches in the system delayed transmission of results. Even the NGO called Free and Fair Elections Network raised some serious concerns pertaining to the elections and their results. It has long been the norm in Pakistan to see intelligence agencies manipulating the results of an election, and these latest elections were no different. If Imran Khan could revisit his own autobiography, called “Pakistan: A personal History” and re-read pages222 -225, he will find the following assessment. “No politician in the country’s history up till then had ever beaten the establishment. Zamir gave me the ISI’s assessment of how many seats each party could get in the autumn elections. Sadly this has been a legacy of intelligence agencies in Pakistan, who without a proper broad based analysis, have made decisions which have proved disastrous for our country. This was my first experience of dealing with the ISI. Consequently a lot of potentially good candidates abandoned us. The ones that were left were turned on by the ISI; and its agents either threatened the Tehreek-e-Insaf candidates, or lured them into Musharraf’s PML (Q). Some candidates gave up altogether, telling me they could not fight the ISI, as it would be a waste of their money”. Here is hoping that this time the results are much different. People are eager that now that the elections are won, the PTI will usher in a new era, where the failings of the past governments will not be repeated. With any luck this new government fulfils its campaign promises and brings about real change across the country. KM MALIK Islamabad Published in Daily Times, July 28th 2018.