Following a brief outage lasting a few hours, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has successfully restored access to the ‘Form 47’ section on its official website. The sudden inaccessibility of this critical section, independently verified by media outlets, raised concerns as it occurred amid criticism directed at the electoral watchdog for delayed election results. The ECP, however, has yet to provide an official explanation for the outage.
‘Form 47’ Section Restored After Temporary Unavailability
The ‘Form-47 Provisional Results Dashboard’ on the ECP’s website displayed a ‘404 error’ during the outage, signaling the unavailability of the page. Such errors commonly occur when a server cannot locate the requested webpage. The interruption in service further fueled existing concerns about transparency and efficiency in the election process, especially in light of recent allegations regarding the manipulation of the form’s data in certain constituencies.
Allegations of Manipulation and Legal Intervention
Earlier in the day, PTI General Secretary Omar Ayub accused returning officers of falsely altering the Form 47 results for 18 National Assembly seats won by PTI-backed independent candidates in Karachi. These allegations underscored the broader issue of contested election results and prompted legal action. The Lahore High Court, responding to PTI-backed candidate Salman Akram Raja’s plea, issued an interim order preventing the ECP from releasing results for Lahore’s NA-128 constituency based on Form 47. The court’s decision came amid a backdrop of concerns about transparency, as highlighted by the mysterious absence of the Returning Officer during the hearing.
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