The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has dismissed as false the accusation levelled by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl's (JUI-F) Emir Maulana Fazlur Rehman that the ECP admitted that the 95 per cent results of last year's general elections were without the signatures of the relevant polling agents.

"The ECP strongly denies this allegation and has not issued any such data or statistics," the ECP said in a statement on Wednesday after coming under fire from the JUI-F which accused the commission of issuing 95 per cent unverified and unauthentic results of the general elections held in July last year.

"Furthermore, the ECP expects that such kind of unverified and imaginary references would be avoided in future," the ECP statement said.

Fazl, in a recent speech at the JUI-F's ongoing sit-in in the federal capital, had accused the ECP of issuing unverified results in the last year's general elections implying that the ECP, in collusion with the 'state institutions,' helped the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to form governments at the centre and in Punjab.

In the sit-in, the JUI-F's top leadership including Fazl and General Secretary Abdul Ghafoor Haideri have frequently criticized the 'state institutions,' for having a hand in PTI's victory in the last year's general elections.

Apart from JUI-F, other opposition parties including Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have alleged that the turn of events before the 2018 general elections saw pre-poll rigging, accusing the 'hidden hands' or establishment of forcing several leaders of opposition parties to change their loyalties in favor of PTI. However, both PML-N and PPP are not actively participating in the JUI-F sit-in even though the leaders of both these parties have addressed the protestors at the sit-in site.

Presently, there is no workable mechanism in Pakistan's laws to take on pre-poll rigging as the existing constitutional and electoral provisions empower the ECP to ensure transparency in procedural matters in any election with no regard to political developments taking place before any election.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019