Retreating his allegations about massive rigging in the February 8 general elections, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) lawmaker Omar Ayub Khan has said that Shehbaz Sharif has been elected prime minister via a ‘stolen’ mandate.
Lambasting the eight-party ruling coalition in the National Assembly, Ayub dubbed newly elected PM Shehbaz a “product” of Form 47 — a key document which provides insight into unconfirmed results of a constituency, including the number of votes cast and cancelled.
The PTI claimed its mandate was stolen in the elections and results were changed in Form 47s. The Imran Khan-founded party also claimed they won 180 NA seats as per the statistics of Form 45s.
It is pertinent to mention here that Form 45, also known as the Presiding Officer’s Results of the Count, is the form that the presiding officer (PO) is required to sign and provide with his thumb impression and signature to the polling agents.
This form records the number of votes cast in a polling station. It also separately mentions how many votes a candidate received from that polling station.
While Form 47 is another important form related to polling stations. In this form, the count of votes from all the polling stations of a constituency is recorded by the Returning Officer. This makes a provisional consolidated result of the constituency sans postal ballots.
Speaking in the lower house of parliament after losing the election for the slot of PM, Ayub termed the Shehbaz-led government a continuation of the former Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) led regime.
Recalling the “discriminations” with the former ruling party, the SIC leader said that they demanded reserved seats during the elections for speaker and deputy speaker’s slots but then-NA speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf refused to stop the voting.
“Our objection on Shehbaz Sharif’s nomination papers was dismissed,” he added.
The PTI was stripped of its iconic election symbol — the cricket bat — but the party leadership did not bow down, he said, adding that the former ruling party was denied a level playing field and barred from electioneering.
Terming the former PDM-led government “fascist”, Ayub asked who was the murderer of journalist Arshad Sharif and PTI worker Zille Shah.
He accused the ruling alliance of getting their candidates’ nomination papers rejected ahead of the general elections.
The PTI leader demanded an independent inquiry into the May 9 mayhem.
