https://arab.news/yqzyf
- Countrywide mobile network shutdown, delayed results led to allegations of manipulation in Feb. 8, 2024 election
- Jamaat-e-Islami party to stage protest outside office of Election Commission of Pakistan in the port city of Karachi
ISLAMABAD: The chief of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) on Thursday announced a “Black Day” and protests on the one-year anniversary of last year’s Feb. 8 general elections that the party says were rigged.
The national polls were marred by a countrywide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by opposition parties like jailed ex-premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the JI headed by Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman.
The caretaker government which oversaw the electoral exercise and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) deny the charges, saying mobile networks were shut down to maintain law and order. The US House of Representatives and several European countries have called on Islamabad to open a probe into the allegations, a move that Pakistan has thus far rejected.
“JI will observe Youm-e-Siyah [Black Day] on Feb. 8 over the stolen mandate and rigged elections last year,” Rehman said at a press conference in Karachi. “We have planned to stage a protest outside the ECP office in Karachi and will observe the Youm-e-Siyah throughout the country.”
The JI party did not win any National Assembly seats in the general elections but managed to clinch two provincial seats in the Sindh Assembly and one in the Balochistan Assembly.
On Jan. 20, PTI founder Khan also called on his supporters nationwide to stage protests on Feb. 8 against the rigging of the polls. He directed Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the PTI is in power, to lead caravans from across the province for a public gathering in Peshawar, the provincial capital.
The PTI has also sought permission, yet to be granted by the local administration, to hold a political rally at Lahore’s Minar-e-Pakistan monument on Feb. 8.
Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.