Daily Times

Sir: We are one lucky bunch of people to witness third consecutive smooth transition of power. However, it could have been even smoother had Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) pulled its socks up like a professional institute. A mammoth task lay before the ECP and it should have prepared for it accordingly!

At the end of the 2013 general elections almost every party cried foul and alleged that there had been rigging. But all of them, save PTI, embraced the results so that the democratic system could proceed. Even Imran accepted the election’s outcome tentatively. After the 2013 election when Khan’s demand of opening four constituencies was not met, he took to the streets. As a result, ECP became the talk of the town during his 126 days long sit-ins.

Fast forward to five years later, it’s the same scenario again. All opposition parties are having a go at ECP for not conducting elections in a free and fair manner.

Having spent millions of rupees on Result Transmission System (RTS) and recruiting massive manpower, the ECP has once again produced controversy-ridden results. It has its own incompetence to blame. Admittedly, these elections were transparent in terms of what transpired when votes were being casted in polling booths. If it was not so, we would not have seen old videos of irregularities being made viral to make this poll questionable.

On the other hand, independent quarters have also not found this election to be rigged out of proportion. But the collapse of RTS has provided the losing partyample excuses to protest. If the losing parties were not enough, ECP seems desperate to taste the patience of the winning party-PTI- by not announcing the results on some 20 seats. If this is what ECP has to offer after spending all the public money that it has, then what is even the purpose of this organisation?

Vasdev

Mithi Tharparker

Published in Daily Times, August 12^th 2018.