A senior bureaucrat in Pakistan has confessed to helping rig Pakistan’s elections, a week after the polls were marred by allegations of manipulation and resulted in no clear winner. Liaqat Ali Chattha, commissioner of the city of Rawalpindi, said he would hand himself over to police and step down from his position.
He admitted to reversing margins of 70,000 votes in 13 national assembly seats, implicating the head of the election commission and the country’s top judge. The commissioner said he should be punished for the injustice he has done and others involved should also be punished. The election commission rejected Chattha’s allegations and said it would hold an enquiry.
Thousands of people rallied in more than a dozen cities, protesting that the vote was rigged. A six-party alliance led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is set to form the next government, despite the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) emerging as a clear winner of the elections. PTI’s Imran Khan called Chattha’s confession “incriminating” and called for a fair investigation and meaningful trial of all those involved in the election rigging.
