Politician gives up his seat, says vote was rigged in his favour

A senior Pakistani politician, Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman, who won provincial elections in the commercial hub of Karachi, Pakistan, has given up his seat, saying the vote was rigged in his favour.

Pakistan voted in national and provincial elections on February 8 but the polls were marred by accusations of rigging to defeat independent candidates backed by jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan.

The caretaker government and Pakistan’s election commission have rejected the allegations and said the country has laws and systems to investigate specific complaints. Rehman of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party was declared the winner of provincial seat 129 in Karachi after securing more than 26,000 votes.

But Rehman said he discovered that votes cast for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party-backed independent candidate Saif Bari were reduced to 11,000 from 31,000