A letter signed by 130 activists, lawyers, and journalists was submitted to the Commonwealth Secretariat on Thursday, expressing concern over the release of a Commonwealth Observer Group\u2019s (COG) report on the 2024 General Elections after a 19-month delay.<\/p>\n
The COG report, released earlier this week, cited \u201crestrictions that curtailed fundamental political rights and hindered one party\u2019s ability to contest fairly\u201d. It also flagged the election-night suspension of cellular services, which undermined transparency and delayed results.<\/p>\n
The letter, which has been shared by some of the signatories on social media, expressed grave concern over the \u201cextraordinary\u201d delay in the report\u2019s publication, noting that election reports are published routinely without any delay.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not aware that any other COG report has been published 10 months after transmittal of the final report to the Secretariat by the relevant observer group,\u201d the letter read.<\/p>\n
The letter noted that in 2013, the general election report was published on June 19 \u2014 only 39 days after polling \u2014 while in 2018, the report was published within the same year.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore recent reports for other countries were all published earlier, despite Pakistan\u2019s election having taken place prior,\u201d the letter added. \u201cThese include Sri Lanka (published December 2024), Ghana (published March 2025), and Trinidad and Tobago (published July 2025).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe note that the official report has only now been published by the Commonwealth Secretariat on September 30, following the publication of a leaked copy of the report by an independent news platform, Dropsite News on September 13.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reports were both submitted to the secretariat on November 20, 2024, and were signed by all fifteen members of the COG, indicating that the report was finalised and transmitted but was \u201cwithheld from the public for 10 months for reasons that require explanation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The letter further noted that withholding the report violated Section 6.3 (the Chair will issue a preliminary statement within 48 hours after polling) of the Revised Commonwealth Guidelines and Section 6.7 (final report) of the Commonwealth Handbook on Election Observation. According to these regulations, election reports \u201cshall be issued in a timely manner \u2026 and then made public\u201d.<\/p>\n
Moreover, on September 14, the Commonwealth issued a statement acknowledging that the letter had been shared with the federal government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).<\/p>\n
\u201cThis damning admission that the report was shared with the perpetrators of election fraud but withheld from the victims of that fraud \u2014 Pakistani voters, opposition parties and civil society \u2014 constitutes a betrayal of the Commonwealth Charter\u2019s commitments to democracy and human rights, and undermines the credibility of election observation itself,\u201d the letter stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe report confirmed that \u2018decisions by key institutions consistently limited the ability of one particular party to contest the elections. Ultimately, these decisions impinged on the credibility, transparency and inclusiveness of the electoral process,\u2019\u201d the letter read.<\/p>\n
Other \u201cworrying observations\u201d made by the signatories included restrictions on fundamental political rights, such as freedom of association; reduced transparency in the electoral process due to telecommunications blackouts; discrepancies in polling results; limiting journalistic freedoms; and the mass arrests of PTI members.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the report noted the COG was \u201cimmensely concerned by allegations [of judicial interference] and by the possibility that such interference may have occurred in relation to election-related court cases\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe foremost duty of the Commonwealth Secretariat in this matter is to uphold the democratic rights of the people of its member state the people of Pakistan,\u201d the letter read.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, the secretariat has harmed democratic accountability and denied millions of Pakistani citizens the opportunity to seek redress for violations of their democratic rights by withholding the election report for 19 months.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter urged the Commonwealth Secretariat to take the following measures:<\/p>\n
Commission an independent inquiry into the 19-month delay in publishing the report
\nAdopt a policy to automatically publish observer reports within a fixed timeframe
\nRefer this issue to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group and place it on the agenda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
\nIssue an unequivocal apology to the people of Pakistan for \u201cfailing them at a critical moment in their history\u201d
\nIn September, the PTI had called on the COG to release this report, claiming that it laid bare \u201csystemic rigging, institutional bias, and deliberate targeting of PTI and its founder, Imran Khan\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A letter signed by 130 activists, lawyers, and journalists was submitted to the Commonwealth Secretariat on Thursday, expressing concern over the release of a Commonwealth Observer Group\u2019s (COG) report on the 2024 General Elections after a 19-month delay. The COG report, released earlier this week, cited \u201crestrictions that curtailed fundamental political rights and hindered one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12396,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-and-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12397,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12395\/revisions\/12397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}