Arguments on legality of vote recounting commission complete

PESHAWAR, Dec 5: The election tribunal here on Thursday completed the hearing of arguments about the legality of the two-man commission by the lawyers of sitting MPA Ghulam Muhammad and his runner-up Sardar Hussain over the recounting of rejected and postal ballot papers. The arguments were initiated after the MPA raised the objection that the commission had crossed its mandate by declaring scores of votes polled in his favour invalid. The single-member tribunal put off the matter to December 12 when both the sides will argue on the result of the vote recounting by the commission, a source who attended the hearing told ChitralToday. In the first week of October, a two-member commission submitted a report to the tribunal after recounting the rejected and postal ballot papers in Chitral showing a one-vote lead for the PPP candidate, Sardar Hussain. However, Ghulam Muhammad, the candidate of the APML, challenged the formation of the commission, which was rejected. The lawyers of Ghulam Muhammad then raised the objection that the commission had unlawfully rejected his votes on the basis of being prefixed with Haji. On Wednesday, lawyers from both the sides completed their arguments after which tribunal fixed Dec 12 as the date for further taking up the matter and announcing the verdict.  ]]>