SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Pakistan election body rejects 'rigging' accusations
Islamabad, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2018
Pakistan's top election official batted away allegations of ballot-rigging Thursday, defending an ongoing delay in the formal vote count as a technical issue.

The incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party flat out rejected the pending results of Wednesday's election, citing "outright rigging" and accusing officials of preventing its representatives from overseeing the count.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) denied the claims, saying a new electronic results system suffered unexpected glitches.

Despite the technical issues, "these elections were 100 percent fair and transparent", said Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Muhammad Raza on Thursday, in his first comments after polls closed.

Raza did not say when election authorities would be in a position to announce the results.

The comments reflected similar remarks by the ECP's secretary hours earlier.

The PML-N chief Shahbaz Sharif -- brother of jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif -- alleged "massive rigging" in the election that "will cause irreparable damage to the country".

As election workers poured over mounds of paper ballots, other major parties -- including the Pakistan Peoples Party -- joined the fray, alleging the count was being manipulated.

The controversy follows a bitter campaign season marred by allegations of interference from the country's powerful military, with former cricket star Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) accused of being the beneficiary.

The election was largely seen as a head-to-head clash between the PTI and the PML-N, with election analysts saying the contest was still too close to call.

The PML-N claims it has been the target of the alleged military machinations. Its former leader Nawaz was ousted from power last year and jailed over a corruption conviction days before the vote, removing Khan's most dangerous rival.

The military denies the allegations.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
China Focus: Chinese scientist details first planned Mars sample-return mission Tianwen 3
NASA says it will lose about 20 percent of its workforce
Building blocks of life found in distant star system suggest origins in interstellar space

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Trump administration expected to say greenhouse gases aren't harmful
MicroCarb satellite launches to map global carbon dioxide emissions from space
Rollable solar array by GalaxySpace redefines satellite compactness and power efficiency

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Airbus CO3D satellites begin mission to generate high precision global 3D map
BlackSky to supply satellite imagery and analytics for Latin American security operations
GovSat selects Thales Alenia Space to build secure satellite for military communications

24/7 News Coverage
First wildfire images reveal FireSat's unmatched detection capabilities
MetOp Second Generation satellite fully fuelled ahead of August launch
MicroCarb satellite launch marks new era in urban carbon tracking



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.