Opposition parties held a protest demonstration outside the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in Islamabad on Wednesday against alleged rigging in the July 25 general elections.
Former prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, PPP’s Sherry Rehman, Khursheed Shah and Farhatullah Babar and PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal were among the leaders who took part in the protest.
PML-N Chairman Shahbaz Sharif, however, was not in attendance party source citing reason that he could not fly to Islamabad from Lahore due to bad weather.
The decision to hold the protest was made by the newly formed 11-party grand opposition alliance, named ‘Pakistan Alliance for Free and Fair Elections’, at a multi-party conference held in Islamabad on Friday.
Apart from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the opposition alliance comprises Awami National Party (ANP), Qaumi Watan Party (QWP), Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), National Party (NP) and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA).
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and president of the MMA, who arrived after the protest had been going on for a few hours, said: “The only reason why all political parties have joined hands today is because the ECP failed to conduct free and fair elections.”
Workers numbering in hundreds gathered in the capital. Participants chanted slogans about their respective political parties as well as the alleged rigging. Security officials were deployed in the area to maintain law and order.
The opposition leaders have also decided to register a strong protest inside and outside parliament during the first sitting of the National Assembly, which according to Caretaker Information Minister Barrister Ali Zafar on Wednesday would be called between August 12-14.