Showing posts with label Rigging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rigging. Show all posts

PTI claim of 20000 bogus votes in NA258 is an absolute rubbish |

http://dawn.com/news/1044500/nadra-confirms-rigging-reports-in-na-258
Nadra confirms rigging reports in NA-258

KARACHI: The election to a National Assembly seat (NA-258) in Karachi was massively rigged in the May 11 general elections, it emerged in a report filed in an election tribunal by the National Database and Registration Authority on Saturday.
The seat was won by the candidate of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Abdul Hakim Baloch.
The election results of the constituency was later challenged in the tribunal headed by a former judge of the Sindh High Court, Zafar Ahmed Sherwani, who directed Nadra to carry out the examination and comparison of the election material, including statement of count, used counterfoils and photo electoral rolls.
Investigations by Nadra revealed that the thumb impressions on 23,432 ballots could not be compared or matched through the Nadra system because the fingerprints were of very poor quality seemingly due to a lack of essential properties of the ink and inkpad used in the process of balloting.
The report said that only 2,475 of the total 32,865 ballots sent to Nadra for verification of certain polling stations were successfully authenticated.
It said that during the process of verification it was revealed that as many as 4,680 counterfoils contained invalid computerised national identity card numbers, which were never issued by Nadra.
Besides, the report said 435 votes were found not registered in the constituency and the fact was ascertained on the basis of the CNIC numbers mentioned on the used counterfoils. This bogus voting was observed in three different polling stations.
According to the report, there were 1,404 duplicate votes polled by 658 voters mainly in two polling stations.
It said as many as eight votes were cast on one CNIC (42401-974889-5) of Muhammad Swaleheen, a resident of Khudi ki Basti, Surjani Town. The report also said that as many as 11 votes were polled on one CNIC (42501-6587372-7) issued in the name of Muhammad Faizan-ud-Din, a resident of Majeed Colony, Landhi.
The report said that as many as 386 used counterfoils were found without having fingerprints on them.
It said that only 2,475 votes were authenticated by Nadra’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). This means that fingerprint affixed on counterfoil at the time of issuance of ballot paper correctly matched with fingerprint data of registered voter held with Nadra in citizens’ database.
The report said that as many as 53 votes failed authentication, meaning thereby that someone else voted against the CNIC number mentioned on the used counterfoils.
It said that a large number of fingerprints on used counterfoils could not be processed through AFIS due to poor quality of fingerprints.
The report said that Nadra had proposed to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) certain features of the ink to be used for capturing fingerprints at the time of issuance of ballot paper, but it seemed that the ink used in the polling process did not possess the proposed qualities.
“This has resulted in 23,432 bad quality fingerprints which were unable to be processed through AFIS. However, CNIC numbers mentioned on such counterfoils having bad thumb impressions were valid and belonged to the same constituency.
The election petition against the winning candidate of the PML-N was filed by the rival candidate of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Abdul Razzaq Raja, who also cited 25 other contestants of the election to the NA-258 as respondents.
He said that the whole electoral process in his constituency was marred by serious irregularities, illegalities and law and order disturbances.
The petitioner alleged that whole constituency witnessed unprecedented display of hubris and arrogance from the supporters of the PML-N as well as some other contesting candidates.
He said that total number of polling stations in the constituency was 287 and most of the polling stations were controlled by the supporters of Mr Baloch, who in collusion with the polling staff demonstrated the extent of rigging by filling the ballot boxes at their whim and made travesty of the whole electoral process.
The petitioner stated that the ballot boxes were stuffed with fake ballot papers by the supporters of the PML-N candidate and other candidates in several polling stations.
He said that there were serious anomalies in the consolidated result in as much as the statement of count differs from the consolidated result and in case of number of polling stations actual vote cast in favour of the petitioner were not taken into consideration.
The petitioner pointed out that he also found some original ballot papers lying abandoned near one of the polling stations and this fact clearly established that ballot papers were in the hands of miscreants and supporters of the contesting candidates and the polling staff had no control over it.
He asked the tribunal to declare that the election held on NA-258 (Gadap) was illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional and tainted with illegal and corrupt practices, as such the polls were null and void in the entire constituency.
He further requested the court to direct the ECP to conduct re-polling in the entire constituency under the strict provision of law-enforcement agencies.
The Nadra report also explained its entire process of verification of the votes. It said that the statement of counts, counterfoils and photo electoral rolls were scanned and loaded into a database to preserve election material in electronic form. This operation was performed using auto-feed high-speed scanners at the desired image quality of 400 DPI, or Dots per inch. After scanning, digitisation operation commenced wherein NIC number was captured and fingerprints/thumb impressions were electronically extracted from the scanned images.
Then, it said, fingerprints/thumb impressions of the voters were sent to the AFIS for authentication /verification against their respective record held against their CNICs. The AFIS is a software solution which has capability to accurately compare/match fingerprints/thumb impressions and verify their authenticity.

Shafqat Mehmood chawal

Stay orders of PTI against ET decisions

Cracks in PTI | Thuss thuss thusnami

http://www.dailywaqt.com/08-12-2015/pic.asp?picname=512.gif

Cracks in PTI | Imran Niazi suspends basic membership of Wajihuddin

http://www.dailywaqt.com/08-06-2015/pic.asp?picname=517.gif
http://www.dailywaqt.com/08-06-2015/pic.asp?picname=53.gif

Hamid criticises PTI’s legal team

Hamid criticises PTI’s legal team


ISLAMABAD: Report of the inquiry commission constituted to investigate allegations that the last general elections had been rigged has not only dealt a blow to credibility of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) but also exposed fissures within its ranks.
Commenting on the report that rejected all the charges, senior Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader and lawyer Hamid Khan has blamed his party’s legal team for the fiasco.
Talking to Dawn on Sunday, he alleged that “the party has been hijacked by the remnants of the (government of) former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf”.
He went on to claim that a conspiracy had been hatched to destroy the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf by the “forces of status quo”.
When asked to identify the people who, according to him, were behind the conspiracy, he named Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf general secretary Jahangir Tareen. “Don’t you know that he was a minister during the Musharraf regime?”

“The party has been hijacked by remnants of the (government) of former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf”

He alleged that his party’s chairman, Imran Khan, had not been advised properly by his team and it had agreed “on wrong terms of reference” for the inquiry commission.
Hamid Khan, who appeared unhappy with his party’s leadership for not consulting him over matters relating to the commission, said the reference prepared by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s legal team was ”wrong”.
Saying that agents of status quo had joined the party in a large number after October 2011, he vowed to revive the old Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf which comprised “ideological people” who wanted to bring about “real change”.
“We will Insha Allah cleanse the party of people who are damaging it under a conspiracy,” he said.
Meanwhile, the PTI chairman, in his messages on social media, praised senior lawyer Abdul Hafeez Pirzada and his team for their efforts during the proceedings of the commission.
“I want to thank Pirzada’s team, esp Sikandar, for their hard work and passion. I have the greatest respect and admiration for him and the heroic way in which he fought PTI’s case before the judicial commission.
“Thanks also go to our PTI lawyers and volunteers, esp Ishaq Khakwani, for putting in marathon hours of work with unflinching commitment,” he said in Twitter messages.
Hamid Khan was apparently sidelined by the party leadership during the days of its Islamabad sit-in last year when he had submitted an unconditional apology on behalf of Imran Khan in the Supreme Court during the hearing of a contempt of court case against the PTI chief Imran Khan later withdrew the apology.
No Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf office-bearer agreed to offer comments on Hamid Khan’s remarks.
Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2015

Cartoon on Bakwas Khan allegation and Naya Pakistan

A frivolous case | Why PTI licked Nawaz Sharif Spit in Judicial commission

A frivolous case


THE commission tried to be charitable. It threw in the bit at the end that the “PTI was not entirely unjustified in requesting the establishment” of the commission. It referred to the “suspicion of a sinister design”.
But we don’t have to be charitable. In the end, the PTI case of mass fraud and manipulation hung on two claims. Both those claims the commission took on in detail. Both were demolished in their entirety. Both — in the end — were nothing more than political smokescreens.
The first one, from the commission report: “562. The PTI has alleged that the Provincial Election Commission Punjab had employed 200 extra persons, picked up from the Urdu Bazar Lahore, just 48 hours before the polling and surreptitiously printed ballot papers to be delivered to unknown constituencies.”

Election officials are not the ISI. There’s little that can be kept secret at the constituency level.

That was the core of the PTI’s case and it went something like this: the ECP colluded with the senior Punjab bureaucracy handling election-related matters and with the caretaker chief minister to print bogus ballots in an unauthorised location and then had them delivered to specific constituencies where the PML-N trounced the PTI.
But it was fairly obvious what had happened, and the commission quickly unearthed it — astonishingly, from the very evidence given by the very witnesses that the PTI itself called to prove its claims.Basically, a lazy ECP realised late in the game that it had screwed up oversight of the printing of the ballot papers.
The Printing Corporation of Pakistan was supposed to print all ballots, but didn’t have the capacity when the final numbers were given to them by the ECP — so the Printing Corporation roped in the Pakistan Postal Foundation to help print roughly 20 million ballots for Punjab.
Amazingly, the numbering and binding of ballot books is done by hand — manually. Nearly two hundred million ballots. Numbered and bound by hand. In the 21st century. Welcome to Pakistan.
Of course, if the Printing Corporation doesn’t have an automated process, neither does the Postal Foundation — so the Postal Foundation handed several million unnumbered ballots to the Printing Corporation and left the Printing Corporation to deal with the headache. On the eve of the election.
A desperate and frantic Printing Corporation then had to hire more people at the last minute to number and bind the loose ballots supplied by the Postal Foundation — and for this the Printing Corporation initiated a pretty standard chain of actions: it contacted the ECP, which had its provincial appointee contact the Punjab administration and so were located the necessary workers.
Thirty-four experienced and qualified individuals — similar to the 80 already hired from all over the country to number and bind the ballots — were hurriedly found and sent from Lahore to Islamabad to get the job done.
It was, yes, an ad hoc arrangement that should never have been needed if the ECP had been more competent and alert — but it wasn’t surreptitious, and it involved many agencies coordinating transparently among, literally, hundreds of people and under the same multi-layered supervision and security applicable to the rest of the ballots.
The second allegation: “567. PTI had pointed out that in many constituencies ballot-papers in excess of total number of registered voters had been delivered, raising serious doubts that the same was done for ulterior motive and so as to facilitate rigging and manipulation.”
Basically, the PTI’s claim was that the ECP Action Plan for Printing of Ballot-Papers for General Election 2013 required the Provincial Election Commissioners, who report to the ECP, to determine the ballot count for each constituency based on the total required at each polling station rounded off to the next hundred.
The big gotcha moment for the PTI was that in Punjab, the Provincial Election Commissioner left it to the Returning Officers in each constituency to determine the number of ballots requested — the Punjab ROs, who were lower court judges, being in the pocket of the PML-N via then-CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry, according to the PTI.
So the commission again did the obvious — it looked at how the excess ballot requests were made. It was essentially a mess. The ECP didn’t really care about its own Action Plan, the PEC wasn’t interested either and the ROs came up with their own formulas — formulas that were based on arithmetic and that had nothing to do with who the candidates were in the constituency.
Instead of polling station-level calculations, polling booth-level calculations were made (a polling station usually has two or three booths). On top of that, additional margins were added by some ROs. That bloated and left uneven the excess-ballot count across some Punjab constituencies.
But — and this was really the crux of the allegation — the commission found no pattern to the excess ballot distribution; it found no evidence the excess ballots were systematically unaccounted for; and it found no evidence — direct or circumstantial — that the excess ballots were systematically used to benefit any party.
Basically, the commission found that the PTI had spun administrative anomalies into a vast conspiracy — but, at the most cursory of probing, the conspiracy collapsed into very ordinary explanations of a quintessentially Pakistani administrative cock-up.
Ah, but you’re thinking, that’s the state’s fault and the PTI only pointed out very real flaws and demanded they be investigated. Well, no. The PTI case was built on a sophisticated understanding of the election process — even your average candidate probably doesn’t know the intricacies of excess-ballot requests and printing arrangements.
You can’t possibly argue that you know the detail of printing arrangements, but not the reasons for them, especially when no one made any attempt at all to hide the explanations all along.You also can’t possibly argue that you know the details of excess-ballot requests, but not that they revealed no pattern that disadvantaged your party or helped the PML-N. Election officials are not the ISI. There’s little that can be kept secret at the constituency level.
The commission didn’t — couldn’t — say it, but the PTI case was frivolous. It was, though, a frivolity based on Imran Khan’s deadly serious quest to knock out the government and become prime minister.
But we knew that already. Onwards, to the next PTI gimmick.
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @cyalm
Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2015

35 punctures - the real story

35 punctures - the real story


Now now, I might not have followed the 35 punctures story last year, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be up at 3:30 in the morning to write about it.

But first, how many of you saw Friday’s Aapas Ki Baat? What a show! Watch it if you haven’t already, and if possible watch it in 3D with a bag of caramel popcorn, ice-cream soda and dark glasses. This bucket has fireworks babes.

But the real reason I am doing my early morning rise and shine is not the fireworks or the punctures, but the various shades of logic that emerge on my Twitter timeline as one PTI supporter after another talks deep stuff about the story.

I think Najam Sethi should write a bestseller and call it Fifty Shades of Bray, and dedicate it to the PTI youth supporters on Twitter. Seriously people, Pakistani youth on Twitter supporting what is increasingly becoming quite a hotchpotch of twists and (u) turns is worth monitoring if truth is to be told about how the young people of Pakistan think these days.

This mass production of youth, educated by the unregulated private schooling mafia, is being herded by a party that’s increasingly becoming infested with confusions and contradictions (and yes U-turns)! To think that these young people will soon be let loose on the future of Pakistan. These young people who are so devoid of logical reasoning, and so reluctant to question their sacred gods that it scares me to think that these are the decision-makers of our future generations. What a time bomb waiting to detonate on us.

So trying to be useful at 3am, I very carefully analyse this raw data and categorise it into 35 categories (this is me trying to be ironic). I hereby present to you my very own version of the PTI’s 35 punctures.

Punctures no 1-5: The complete denial category. Remember what Meera once said to Mubashir Luqman with a very straight face? “This is a fack video.” Similarly there is a type of PTI supporters that is in complete denial about the party’s human follies. These are the conspiracy theorists, the soothsayers, the I-know-better guys, the time-will-tell people, and the IK-can-do-no-wrong crowd. “This in nothing but IK’s wisdom laying eggs”, they say. “You just wait and see”. And for special effect they start their tweets in the name of all that is holy and end them with some very colourful adjectives all in 140 characters.

Puncture no 6-10: The partial denial clique. This is the group that comprises the haters, the completely stubborn, the completely smitten, the completely loyal and the completely idiotic. Though reluctantly they all admit that the 35 punctures story lacks evidence so far, but what does it matter right? Even if it was without evidence Geo is still bad and Najam Sethi is still evil, and this is the theme we are always sticking to – even if IK ditches us and does solo interviews on Geo and later goes kite flying with Najam Sethi in the meadows. #U-turn.

Puncture no 11: Let’s change the topic puncture. This is the group that simply answers all questions with a single-track approach. We will talk about metro and we will talk about patwaris, and when all else fails we will talk about tabdeeli. #Bhabi please RT. Oye! Idiot. #achasorry

Puncture no 12-13: The accuser and the abuser. Oye, puncture vuncture whatever, but look at the lifafa journalists and look at the funding coming from India and look at this four letter word here, yes. #censorthishashtag. Done. Bhabi please RT #Iheartyou.

Puncture no 14-16: The artist, the peacemaker and the Photoshop guys. These are the talented ones amongst the PTI supporters and they believe in peace through art and craft (mostly Photoshop). What 35 punctures you idiots, they will say. Look here is a picture of Khan, and look how handsome he looks wearing a Superman costume and riding an SSG falcon while shooting 35 arrows on an American flag hoisted on a cricket bat doing Kung Fu with an Indian pigeon with 35 beaks. #onlyhope.

Puncture no 17-18: Puncture the traitor-slayer. Well since the puncture story has been debunked, let’s blame it all on India. Or else check out what’s happening in the Middle East. #35 punctures chor do, char halqay khol do.

Puncture no 19: The ultimate matchmaker puncture. East or west, Sheikh Rasheed is the best. IK Sheikh Rasheed bhai bhai. #saynotopride.

Puncture no 20: The hashtag generator. This by far is the most dangerous of the puncture category because it’s called ‘let’s divert everybody’s attention with an irrelevant hashtag’. Please for the love of God, PTI you are very good at starting trends on the social media. Please be responsible with what you generate. Sometimes #wehateNawazSharif has got nothing to do with the answers we want from your leaders.

Puncture no 21: The real-issue guys. These are the super sanguine people and all they have to say is chaddo jee, the real issue is not 35 punctures, but the real issue is the PCB appointment and the more real issue is Lola the showgirl. What about that, hain jee? #Copacabana #stupidmedia.

Puncture no 23-25: The moral brigade, the IK worshippers, and the let’s forgive IK advocates: These are the factions who have a lot of moral values especially for Sethi and are constantly micro-blogging short sermons in multiple instalments about how a journalist should never talk about personal stuff in a program and should never cast aspersions on the national integrity of a national leader no matter how much aspersions are cast on the non-national integrity of a non-leader national. #NoonLeagueHaiHai #PleaseforgiveIK. #BasAikGhaltiAur.

Puncture no 26-31: The clueless mafia. This is the category that is basically just that. Clueless. They are a herd of goats and this is how they operate. If no 26 is overjoyed that at last the 35 puncture story has been proven right (because he had a dream about it) then no 27-31 are overjoyed too and are already tweeting national anthems about it with hashtag: PTI ki shaan Bhabi Jaan. #Let’sbanShirinMazari.

Puncture no 32: The misogynist and the Malala hater. #MyLipsAreSealed.

Puncture no 33: The poet puncture. So this is the poetry this person is writing the moment he sees Aapas ki Baat. Roses are red, violets are blue. I love IK but IK loves you. (Bhabi please RT)

Puncture 34: The ‘let’s tweet like Bhabi’ puncture. Don’t you dare make fun of my hubby. My hubby will ban you. My hubby is the one hero produced in the country. #selfie on a prayer mat #IAmNotEnteringPolitics. #BhabiMakesPoliticalSpeech

Puncture 35: The ‘let’s talk like IK’ puncture. Five days ago: Oye. Meri wife politics main kabhi nain aaye gee. Five days later: Oye. Meri wife politics main aa nahi rahi… aa gaee hai. #IKIsTheMan.

On a serious note, PTI, darling, say something. I’m giving up on you (courtesy: The Great Big World). I still remember the first time I met the core members of the PTI all together in a room and my first reaction was: these are the people who represent me and mine. Middle class, educated, hardworking, honest, wanting a prosperous Pakistan because they believe in it not because they want something from it. 

And now I look at the PTI’s fast-changing image and I wonder if I was too naïve all along. There is nothing wrong about Reham Khan becoming the official face of a party that says no to family politics. Spouses all over the world do make public appearances. But the new kind of photo-ops that emerge on the media are largely overshadowing the PTI’s purposeful, intelligent, profound image of the past. When earlier we thought about the PTI, we thought about people like Andaleeb Abbas and Asad Umar, Dr Yasmeen and Shafqat Mahmood. Now it’s as if the seriousness of purpose has suddenly turned into a farce. 

A very bad caricature of its original self, the PTI is just an overly exposed jumble of controversies and confusions, silly statements, self praise, frivolity, and zero tolerance for dissent. As a firm believer of the PTI’s core values, I don’t see the party ever losing its support because Imran Khan’s star factor will always pull it up, but if the promise of real change has to be fulfilled then gloating over popularity should not be enough. 

Don’t isolate the more idealistic core of PTI supporters. Do away with the plastic. Bring the genuineness back. Bring the clarity back. Bring the honesty back. Bring the fire back. #IKpleaseRT.

The writer is an MSc candidate at the University of Oxford. 

Email: adiahafraz@gmail.com

Punctured ego

Punctured ego


OCCASIONALLY, two plus two can equal five. Or, in the world of the PTI, 35 minus 35 can equal 71. And that’s why it is possible, occasionally, in the PTI world again, for an apology to be apologised for. For the few who care to remember and the even fewer who grasped the faux-logic, there is the peculiar tale of 35 punctures. Allegedly, once upon a time, two years ago, the PTI believed it was going to give the PML-N a real scare in Punjab. Some in the PTI even believed the party would trounce the PML-N in elections. Then, on election night, when it turned out the trouncing was not done to the PML-N, but by the PML-N, a legend was born: 35 punctures. Somehow, the alleged architect-in-chief, then caretaker chief minister Najam Sethi, decided to gloat about his achievement in scuttling 35 victories of the PTI to the chief beneficiary and incoming prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, over the telephone. Somehow, the alleged conversation was allegedly recorded. And somehow — the alleged chain of conversation would put a game of Chinese whispers to shame — the PTI learned of the Sethi-Sharif conversation and so was born the legend that the PTI obsessed over.
Now, having embarrassingly failed to even bring up the issue of 35 punctures before the judicial commission, Imran Khan has once again stunned the PTI’s critics. The PTI didn’t bring up 35 punctures because it was actually 71 punctures, Mr Khan claimed on Sunday. Double the punctures should mean double the evidence, but in at least one way the PTI has been consistent with the laws of mathematics. Since originally zero evidence was provided, doubling that zero would also mean zero evidence — which is exactly what Mr Khan or the PTI has provided. But politics is nothing if not for the brave, or perhaps just the foolhardy. Except no one in the PTI would like to question 71 punctures. After all, Arif Alvi bravely tried to own up to being wrong about 35 punctures and look what trouble that got him in.
Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2015

Blogroll