Pakistan President Arif Alvi expressed his dissatisfaction with the postponed election results on Saturday, claiming that if Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) had been used during the February 8 general elections, the country would not be in this current dilemma, according to Geo News.
Despite the commission’s lofty claims, the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) new Election Management System (EMS) failed, he stated.
Notably, some 72 hours after the elections ended, the election authority has yet to announce preliminary results for each seat.
Arif Alvi took to social media platform X(formerly Twitter) and said: “Had EVMs been there today, my dear beloved Pakistan would have been spared this crisis.”
President Alvi recalled the previous PTI-led government’s campaign for EVMs, claiming that the entire effort, which included over 50 meetings at the presidency alone, was abandoned.
“Remember ‘our’ long struggle for EVMs. EVM had paper ballots that could be counted separately by hand (like it is being done today) but it also had a simple electronic calculator/counter of each vote button pressed,” he said.
According to Geo News, if the machines had been used, the totals for each candidates would have been ready and printed within five minutes of the poll’s close.
On February 10, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) protested alleged vote manipulation and tampering in Sindh’s PS-22 constituency.
“Our [JUI-F’s] candidate was made to lose via [deliberate] change of results,” JUI-F leader Rashid Mehmood Soomro said.
“We have won by [margin of] 7,000 votes as per the Form 45s in our possession,” he said while calling for fresh elections in multiple constituencies, according to Geo News.
Amid the delay in the publishing of Pakistan’s election results, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has called for a statewide protest on Sunday to safeguard the sanctity of the vote, with independent candidates leading with 100 seats.
According to the article, the decision follows the party’s central committee meeting, at which it was announced that ‘peaceful protests’ will be organized around the country to safeguard the sanctity of the vote.
The meeting also discussed election results and next action.
The core committee also discussed connection with specific political parties.
Important decisions were taken during the conference, which the party stated would be executed following consultation with PTI founder Imran Khan.