FAFEN observes violations in Sialkot PP-38 by-poll tribune.com.pk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tribune.com.pk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
This photo shows the vote counting process during the re-poll in Daska. DawnNewsTV/File
ISLAMABAD: The Free and Fair Elections Network (Fafen) on Sunday stated that NA-75 Sialkot-IV (Daska) by-election witnessed low incidences of electoral violation as procedures were generally transparent and election staff conducted the process with care and mostly in accordance with prescribed regulations.
“The polling process was generally observed to be organised at the observed polling stations. Nearly 71 percent (95) of the observed polling stations had polling booths in separate rooms; however, around 29pc of the polling stations 21 male, 11 female, and six combined housed more than one booth in a single room. The polling agents of contesting candidates were present at all observed polling stations, and all of them except at one polling station were seated at a place where they could easily observe the process,” read the report issued by Fafen on the by-election held on Saturday.
February 28, 2021
The Daska incidents have raised questions about the Election Commission’s ability to hold free and fair elections
Daska looked like a war zone on the polling day. “It was like a scene from an Indian movie. Bullets were being shot in random directions on the streets and there was no one to stop it. It had never been like this here, ever,” Abid Mehdi, a local journalist, told
The News on Sunday. Mehdi works for a national newspaper
.
Eyewitness accounts of by election in Daska, NA-75, are alarming. Two polling agents lost their lives. They were identified as Pakistan Tehreej-i-Insaf’s Majid and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Zeeshan. The deaths were reported from a polling station set up at Government Boys High School Goindkey-Bombaanwala. Two other PML-N supporters, Sajid and Fahad, were seriously injured.