Pakistan polls: PML-N alleges rigging, EC rejects claim
The Election Commission of Pakistan on Thursday rejected the rigging allegations leveled by the incumbent PML-N after trends showed Imran Khan’s party inching towards majority.
In an unusual press conference at 4am local time, Chief Election Commissioner Muhammad Raza Khan congratulated the people of Pakistan for participating in the election process. He, however, acknowledged that the delay in announcement of election results has “caused some annoyance”.
The short pace of counting has given currency to the allegations of manipulation of the election process. The results were expected by this morning, but the CEC only announced what he called was the “first non-official, preliminary result”. The CEC stressed the delay was on account of a new system – Results Transmission System – introduced by it.
Shortly after the allegation were made, ECP secretary Babar Yaqoob said the Result Transmission Service failed after results of 25,000 out of 85,000 polling stations were uploaded.
A party can form the government if it manages to clinch 172 seats out of the total 342. A single party will need at least 137 of the 272 directly-elected seats to be able to form the government on its own.
