By Maroosha Muzaffar

Copyright yahoo

Election observers from the Commonwealth have criticised the fairness of Pakistan’s 2024 general election in a long-awaited final report, warning that voters’ “fundamental political rights” had been restricted.

The election was won by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) despite its candidates being forced to register as independents, yet the party was denied the chance to form a government and a coalition was instead agreed by the country’s two legacy parties, with Shehbaz Sharif reinstalled as prime minister.

Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz won 79 seats and the Pakistan People’s Party took 54, each falling well short of the 133 needed for an outright majority and trailing the 92 seats won by independents backed by Mr Khan’s PTI.

In its new report, finally released on Tuesday more than 18 months after the vote, the Commonwealth Observer Group said Mr Khan’s party saw its ability to fairly contest the election “consistently limited”.

Mr Khan was arrested several months before the election and has had more than 200 charges levied against him in total, all of which his party says are politically motivated. He remains in prison and PTI says he faces inhumane conditions that amount to torture.

“We noted with concern a number of factors in the pre-election period that significantly impacted the level playing field, most crucially the non-allocation of the bat symbol to PTI and the registering of PTI candidates as independents,” the report said.

“While the reason for this decision had a basis in law, the negative consequences of this decision appeared vastly disproportionate to the offence this decision sought to address. Other issues of concern included certain decisions of the courts, including those in relation to Imran Khan, who was convicted in three separate cases days before the election. There were also limitations on fundamental political rights, including freedom of association and assembly,” the Commonwealth observers found.

It continued: “These limitations were felt most acutely by PTI and its supporters. We also noted limitations on journalistic freedoms, including in relation to freedom of speech and a culture of impunity for perpetrators of violence against journalists, which may have led to self-censorship.”

The report accuses the government of violating “fundamental political rights, including freedom of association, assembly and expression”.

“The Group received multiple reports of PTI members and supporters being arrested, detained and undergoing unexplained periods of disappearance, and of PTI offices and PTI members’ homes being closed or raided. These occurrences affected the ability of parties and candidates to exercise their fundamental constitutional rights of freedom of association and assembly.”

The report also noted that there was a shutdown of mobile phone services on election night, which it says reduced the transparency of the process and impacted the efficiency of delivering results. In a statement, the observer group warned that these developments may have “impinged on the credibility, transparency and inclusiveness of the electoral process”.

A chapter on media coverage of the election warned that state control over mainstream media by the ruling party significantly impacted the fairness of the election, criticising in particular the way in which broadcasters were effectively banned from even mentioning Imran Khan by name.

It notes that “some sections of the media covered some candidates and political parties more favourably than they did others, with PTI-affiliated independent candidates receiving less positive coverage in national mainstream media”.

The group also noted that “election coverage by the state-owned Pakistan Television Corporation lacked balance, with the majority of its coverage concentrated on PML-N and the PPP – especially the former – while independent candidates representing the de facto suspended PTI were not given as much coverage”.

The report says that they were “informed that broadcasters were prevented from saying Imran Khan’s name, instead being instructed to refer only to the Chair of PTI”.

The report further noted “a number of discrepancies between polling station results forms and tabulated results forms at the constituency level, which may have resulted in some candidates being unlawfully returned”.

Earlier this month, PTI had accused the Commonwealth group of suppressing the report. “The Commonwealth and the European Union, for ‘the first time in the history of foreign observation of Pakistani democracy’ suppressed their own reports on the massive rigging in elections 2024, perpetrated by Pakistan’s authoritarian military regime,” Mr Khan’s PTI wrote on X.

The Independent has reached out to PTI for comment.

Syed Zulfikar Bukhari, a close aide of Mr Khan, said earlier in September when a leaked version of the report was circulated: “Frankly the commonwealth has embarrassed itself. A report that should have been released days after the election is still being suppressed.”

“This was the most rigged and fraudulent election in Pakistan’s history and the ‘independent observer’ that was tasked to expose these atrocities seems to be complicit in them,” Mr Bukhari added. “They (the Commonwealth) are complicit in the murder of democracy in Pakistan.”

The Commonwealth declined to comment on the contents of the leaked document but rejected allegations that it was being suppressed. It said: “The government and the Election Commission of Pakistan have already received the report. The full report, as we had communicated earlier, will be released later this month, along with a number of COG reports currently in the publication pipeline.”

The Independent has reached out to the Election Commission of Pakistan and the ministry of information and broadcasting for comment.