PPPP’s rejoinder to ECP statement about Form-45

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) is surprised and dismayed over the insistence of the Election Commission of Pakistan that all data pertaining to Form-45 containing the results of vote count of the 2018 polls was uploaded on its website and described it as twisting facts unbecoming of a constitutional body like the ECP.

"Form-45 containing vote count results was a basic document of vote count. It is mandatory that it is also signed by the polling agents of candidates contesting elections. An unsigned Form-45 has no legal value. This is what the Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has been saying all along,” said Secretary General PPPP Senator Farhatullah Babar in rejoinder to the statement of Election Commission of Pakistan on Wednesday.

Farhatullah Babar said the PPPP's election cell headed by Senator Taj Haider has complete data of Form 45 and other election related forms painstakingly prepared by FAFEN (Free and Fair Elections Network) pertaining to all the 78,467 polling stations for National Assembly in the country. "95% Form-45 (numbering 74,302) do not bear signatures of polling agents. Only sixty five Form-45 bear the signatures of polling agents of Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians,” he said.

The Secretary General PPP Parliamentarians said the ECP sometime back responding to it had asserted that polling agents of losing candidates left the polling stations on their own and that is why the forms bore no signatures. He said the polling agents of most candidates were driven out of the polling station no doubt as the ECP was helpless. “Even if the presiding officers were unable to record that polling agents had been driven out they should have at least recorded, as required by law, that polling agents had left on their own,” he said.

Moreover, he said the ECP should at least have been able to produce Form-45 duly signed by the polling agents of winning candidates who should have been eager to sign their victory certificates. None of it was done for reasons not known. "Some figures will help illustrate it further. In Balochistan no one out of 2,427 Form-45 was found signed by polling agents, in Sindh only 74 out of 17493 and in Punjab only 27 out of 43971 Form-45 have been found signed by PML-N polling agents and 39 by the polling agents of PTI candidates.

He said in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa only 24 Forms 45 out of a total of 13790 were found signed by polling agents of PTI, 13 of PML-N and 18 by the polling agents of PPP.

He said in the two constituencies NA-246 and NA-200 where Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was a candidate none of Form-45 is signed by the polling agent. "No unsigned Form-45 can be regarded as document authenticating election results. ECP insistence on flaunting unsigned Form-45 as proof of authenticity of vote count passes comprehension and only raises further questions," he said.