Vantage | How to rig an election Pakistan way

If you are a dictator, you could rig an election by jailing your opponents; you could ban them from contesting the election; and you could even erase their political identity by denying them their election symbol. The nuclear option is to rig the votes; that is what most dictators resort to, and Pakistan’s military is no different.

Pakistani army did everything on the dictator’s checklist, but they could not hide the rigging. It is because now an insider has blown the whistle.

“I couldn't get the election done properly, and I am resigning. With the wrongs I have committed in this election, on 13 seats from Rawalpindi, we have made sure that losers emerge as winners. We have turned leads of 70,000 votes into defeats,” said Liaquat Ali Chatta who was the Election Commissioner for Rawalpindi.

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Chatta rigged the votes there; he turned losers into winners.

Victory was stolen from at least 13 candidates. They were the independents from Imran Khan's party. The military stole its seats after months of trying to weaken them. You know the story: From jailing Imran Khan to banning him from the airwaves to taking away his party symbol—the bat.

The Army did everything, but Imran Khan's independents defeated the odds. Chatta's confession is revealing, but not surprising.

But who forced him to change the votes? He has given two names: The first one is of Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, who is a civil servant—the same official who came out after polling and announced the delay in counting and results.

The second character in this drama is more significant—the Chief Justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, Qazi Faez Isa. Justice Isa is an old foe of Khan.

As prime minister, Imran Khan went after this judge. His government accused Justice Isa of concealing assets. Khan tried to get him dismissed but did not succeed. A few months later, Justice Isa was elevated to the top job—tthe Chief Justice of Pakistan.

Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa announced the ruling in a live late-night telecast of the proceedings on the top court's website. Stripped of the bat, the PTI candidates needed to contest on individual symbols, which could confuse its voters.

Imran Khan tried his best to mend ties; in November last year, he wrote a letter to Justice Isa, urging him to protect his party's fundamental rights. Now Justice Isa is being implicated in the election rigging. Of course, he denies the allegations, but Khan's supporters are not convinced. They've been protesting and demanding the release of their leader.

Over the weekend, four Pakistani cities saw protests: Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, and Lahore. There was another internet shut down. Pakistani authorities say the shutdown was a response to "recent incidents of terrorism" in Pakistan. But it's not rocket science to figure out why they did it—news about Chatta's confession was spreading—and Pakistan's deep state wanted the story to die down. Well, it is not dying, but snowballing.

Reports say Chatta has now been arrested. Meanwhile, Imran Khan and his aides are ramping up their campaign. The former prime minister has released another video that features a journalist showing fake ballot papers.

These claims are serious and compelling. They are also raising tensions. Pakistan's mandate was tampered with, the execution was shoddy, and the results were disastrous. But the military is being allowed to get away. Not only by Pakistan's supposedly free institutions, but also by the likes of the US, which have given Rawalpindi a green chit. The US State Department called the election "clearly competitive", with no mention of the rigging, despite the smoking guns.

There is a confession to back up the claims. It remains to be seen how the military will clean up this mess and how the army’s Western allies will justify it.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.