Fafen regrets inaccuracies in turnout claim

[Saifullah Sani]

ISLAMABAD: The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) has regretted inaccuracies in its list of 49 polling stations that it earlier claimed had seen a voter turnout of more than 100 per cent.

After returning officers of some of the constituencies mentioned in the list found fault in it, Fafen clarified that the data was based on reports of ‘citizen observers’ trained to monitor the voting and counting processes on the polling day.

Putting the record straight, it said that according to official statements of the count, the turnout in polling station-155 in NA-6 was 56pc, in PS-113 in NA-7 64pc and in PS-238 in NA-52 approximately 50pc.

It said the inaccuracies might have been due to human errors by volunteer citizen observers in transcribing numbers by hand from statements of the count late at night on the election day or due to changes in the polling station numbers as listed in the polling schemes, which changed the number of registered voters at each station used as the basis for the calculation.

Fafen said the purpose of the report was to urge the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to release the polling station-wise data before certifying election results in any constituency, which would help reveal any problem that required further investigation and action.

Fafen regrets inaccuracies in turnout claim

 

[ejaz007]

FAFEN should be fined and warned to be careful in future. I guess they have lost whatever credibility they might have had previously. Now no one shall take their reports seriously.

I once had the chance to visit their office in Islamabad and by seeing the kind of young ladies they had hired not surprised at all that they messed up.

 

[mkg00179504]

Nothing else but pressure tactics from some groups.OR may be they saw some $$$$ somewhere and now everything was fair and clear back to normal.

 

[FaujHistorian]

FAFEN should be fined and warned to be careful in future. I guess they have lost whatever credibility they might have had previously. Now no one shall take their reports seriously.

I once had the chance to visit their office in Islamabad and by seeing the kind of young ladies they had hired not surprised at all that they messed up.

Right on Brother!

They should be thrown in jail. It is pathetic that they never waited for the exact vote count, fudged the numbers and instigated riots.

Not only that, they are tarnishing the good name of the country.

pathetic




FAFEN faces charges of trying to instigate riot

By Owais JafriPublished: May 16, 2013

MULTAN:

Whether it was due to miscalculations or misreporting, the Free and Fair Elections Network, (FAFEN) now faces charges of disseminating misinformation which could disrupt the peace and cause strife among various sections of the public.

Police in Rahim Yar Khan District have lodged an FIR against the FAFEN chief Syed Mudassir Rizvi under section 505/B for propagating wrong information with the intention to disrupt peace under section. The FIR was lodged on the orders of the DPO Rahim Yar Khan, SSP Sohail Habib Tajik.

FAFEN had reported that in NA 195 and NA 193 the voter turnout was more than 240% on the day of elections, but the official figures say otherwise.

Given the volatile post-election political climate, the FAFEN report, according to police, can cause a riot in the constituency.

FAFEN claims that voter turnout was more than the total registered voters in many polling stations. The network has backed its claims on reports of its representatives appointed at each polling station.

FAFEN has raised objections on the results of 49 constituencies of the provincial assemblies and the National Assembly after taking samples from 8,119 polling stations. It has also demanded the ECP take notice of the situation.


Despite the objection raised by FAFEN that voter turnout was more than 240% in NA-193 and NA-195, the official numbers presented a different story in Rahim Yar Khan.

According to the results in NA-193, Sheikh Fayazuddin of PML-N has won with 86,015 votes beating Mian Abdus Sattar of PPP who had secured 46,134 votes. Total registered voters in 257 polling stations in sub district Khanpur of Rahim Yar Khan were 288,381 and total votes cast were 163,913.

Similarly, results issued by the returning officer Justice Sardar Muhammad Khan in NA-195 in sub district Rahim Yar Khan of the same district, the total registered voters are 307,813 and votes cast are 172,539. Winning candidate Syed Mustafa Mehmood of PPP secured 97,769 votes beating the independent candidate Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiyar who had secured 46,888 votes.

As per the official record, the FAFEN figures are completely off the mark.

Police lodged the separate FIRs in Khanpur police station and Iqbalabad police station in Rahim Yar Khan on the applications of the respective station house officers of the police stations.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16th, 2013.

FAFEN faces charges of trying to instigate riot – The Express Tribune

 

[Saifullah Sani]