KARACHI: Former governor Sindh Muhammad Zubair while expressing his reservations on the polling process said that the elections were managed to make one particular party win through widespread rigging. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday at Governor House, former governor Muhammad Zubair said that pre-poll rigging, poll day rigging and after poll rigging occurred in last Wednesday’s elections. “I have never seen such an election before,” expressed the former provincial governor. While criticizing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Muhammad Zubair said that despite the passage of four days, the election process was still not over. “The ECP should be ashamed for such deliberate delay,” he added. The former governor who had resigned on Saturday said that although he wasn’t required to resign after the elections, he had done so because he believed that as per democratic traditions the new federal government should have the authority to appoint the governors of its choice. Muhammad Zubair told the media that some other reasons also prompted his resignation. “The election process was dubious; no one had expected that polling agents of parties would be expelled during the counting of ballots from Peshawar to Karachi,” said the former Sindh governor. While addressing the press conference, Muhammad Zubair shared that he had resigned from the office of governor Sindh but he planned on continuing politics. Reverting back to the topic of delayed election results, the former Sindh governor said that the ECP’s result transmission system (RTS) had stopped working right after the polls ended but the ECP had failed to notify the nation and the political parties on time that the system had crashed. “All political parties contesting the election were expecting results through a system that stopped working,” said Muhammad Zubair. “When all political leaders were holding press conferences and raising doubts about the counting process, the ECP should have disclosed the news of their RTS failing right away but instead they informed the media at midnight,” said Muhammad Zubair. “Did the RTS stop working or someone stopped it from working? This we were not informed” continued Muhammad Zubair. He then said that nobody was willing to explain why and how the system stopped working or why the vote counting could not be managed throughout the country. The ex governor said that he was surprised that the ECP was not recounting votes when all main political parties were demanding it. “The law clearly states that the ECP has to entertain requests for recounting if the vote difference between two candidates is less than 5 percent,” said former governor. Muhammad Zubair was sworn in as the 32nd Governor of Sindh in February, 2017. He was sworn in after the shortest-serving Sindh governor justice (retd) Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui passed away in January 2017. Zubair, who was chairman of the Privatisation Commission before being appointed to the governor’s post, is the brother of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader and MNA-elect Asad Umar. Prior to serving as chairman of the Privatisation Commission, Zubair was chairman of the Board of Investment from July to December 2013. From 2012-13, he was a part of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Economic, Tax Reforms and Media Committees. Published in Daily Times, July 30th 2018.