EVM aimed at rigging elections, undo 18th Amendment, says PPP

Islamabad: PPP Secretary General former Senator Farhatullah Babar has said that the EVM is a device to rig the elections through technology, without a human face, so as to put in place a parliament to undo the 18thConstitutional amendment and the NFC Award, the twin parliamentary devices that have not been acceptable to the de-facto state which has been conspiring against it from the outset.

He said the PPP will resist it at all available forums and if needed will also move the Courts.

He said this while addressing a party event organized by the President PPP Women wing Islamabad Sadaf Murtaza to celebrate Benazir Bhutto’s birthday in the Party’s Media Office in Islamabad Sunday evening.

He said that if PDM parties had resigned from the Assemblies the government would have got two third majority in the Parliament by holding bye elections under the constitution even without resort of overt rigging. When that did not happen the de-facto part of the state decided to manipulate the next elections EVM so as to bring in another parliament according to their plans.

He said that the ECP also had formally rejected 45 out of 72 proposed changes in the Election Act 2017 which the government first introduced as an ordinance in the ded of the night and later got it bulldozed through the National Assembly. The opposition will not let it pass through the Senate, he said.

He said that in order to make EVM look palatable the government had cleverly tied it with voting of overseas Pakistanis so as to hoodwink the people. He said that overseas Pakistanis should be integrated in the electoral process in a manner that is doable and for which legal and constitutional basis is provided. He said Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto had already elaborated on it.

He said that behind the façade of voting of overseas Pakistanis the government wanted to bull doze EVMs to rig the next elections and change the constitutional edifice of the country.

He said that numerous studies carried out have shown that EVM is highly susceptible to manipulation and electoral fraud.

The computer based system of voting requires computer literacy that is also lacking in Pakistan. Even in some of those countries which initially adopted it in some constituencies have discontinued.

In a country where state agencies switch on and off internet and social media platforms with impunity on the pretext of ‘national security’ and where the electronic result transmission system (RTS) failed mysteriously in the last elections it is impossible to trust EVMs. The nation must know the truth behind RTS failure, he said.

Former CEC late Fakhruddin G Ebrahim also undertook a pilot project but had to abandon it when he concluded that it was not workable.

He said that the locus of power was shifting from political and party workers to non-state militant actors and the unelected defacto arm of the state. “It is shifting from the parliament house in Islamabad to the unelected institution in rawalpindi”, he said and warned that if not checked it will spell disaster for the stability and integrity of the country.

All her life Benazir Bhutto fought for the federation and parliamentary supremacy he said adding ‘let us rededicate ourselves on her birthday to resist the shift of political power from political parties towards militants and their supporters”

Those who spoke on the occasion included MNA Nafisa Shah, Shahida Rehmani, Ibrar Shah, Senator Shahadat Awan, Akhunzada Chattan, Syed Sibtal Bokhari, city women president ppp Sadaf Murtaza and others. Traditional cake cutting ceremony was also held