ISLAMABAD – Holding a press conference at 4am on Thursday, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Muhammad Raza Khan congratulated the people of Pakistan for participating in a “democratic polling process”, and expressed gratitude for the polling staff across the country as well as the security personnel deployed on Wednesday.
He also thanked all state institutions that helped play a role in the elections process, especially the judiciary for providing judicial officers, who acted as returning officers and polling officers.
He thanked the officers “for playing their part professionally,” and expressed gratitude to security personnel, the Pakistan Army and the chief of armed staff for their services in securing the election.
He later announced the first non-official, preliminary result for PP-11 (Rawalpindi VI), which PTI’s Chaudhry Adnan won.
He also assured those who had questioned the non-issuance of Form 45, saying strict action will be taken against officers found to have violated election laws.
To a question asking him how he would respond to allegations of rigging in the election, the CEC confidently replied: “We will prove ourselves that we did our job right.”
“There only has been a delay; there was no problem in the system. The delay has now happened and we cannot do anything about it,” he said when questioned repeatedly about the delay in transmission of results.
