Pakistan polls rigged even before voting? Election body accused of altering voting map

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is accused of using delimitation exercise and redrawing the voting map to allegedly make things fall in favour of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and bring him back to power.

The ECP is already being questioned about the coming general elections in the country and the possibility of pre-polling rigging.

As many as 1,300 objections have been raised over the delimitation process in Pakistan which followed on from a census that was recently conducted.

The objections were raised over the proposed amendments to constituencies by the ECP, including over the merging of the Balochistan districts of Harnai and Sibi into a single constituency, despite the two being 400 km apart with no road connections and stark climate, culture and demographic differences.

Elections in Pakistan were earlier scheduled for November 2023, but now they have been delayed and will be held in February 2024. The reason was the results of the census, but opposition parties in the country alleged that the dates have been pushed by months to give more time to Nawaz Sharif to return from exile in the UK and prepare for the polls.

Sharif, leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), is said to be the favoured candidate of Pakistan’s all-powerful military. He has served as the prime minister of the country four times.

Not just political opponents, the monitoring group Free and Fair Election Network has also raised serious objections over the preliminary delimitations and said more than one-fifth of the proposed constituencies did not conform to the regulations on voter numbers.

A report by The Guardian stated Deenar Domki, a politician from Balochistan, raising objection to the merging of the Harnai and Sibi districts.

Domki alleged that the constituency borders were being altered to favour former minister Noor Muhammad Dumar, who recently joined Sharif’s PML-N party. He further claimed that Dumar was the “main beneficiary of this unjust demarcation”, pointing out that some voters would have to cross five districts in order to vote or participate in local campaigning.

Domki also alleged that the ECP has accepted bribes and said decisions had been made “in a closed room with no information about geography, cultures and demography of constituencies”.

“This is pre-poll rigging. With such measures, there can’t be free elections,” Donki said.

The ECP has also been accused of redrawing the map in order to directly undermine the support Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) which still is popular among the voters of the country.