X Access Restricted in Pakistan Amid Election Rigging Admissions

Users in Pakistan have faced a 24-hour outage of X, previously known as Twitter, amid ongoing internet disruptions surrounding the contentious February 8 national election. The outage, as reported on Sunday, follows a series of internet issues in the country leading up to and after the election.

Netblocks, a watchdog monitoring service, stated that X has been restricted in Pakistan for a total of 24 hours, marking the latest and longest in a series of nationwide internet censorship measures imposed by authorities. The outage coincides with reported internet blackouts and mobile phone service suspensions on election day, which the Ministry of Interior attributed to the government’s response to “recent incidents of terrorism” and efforts to “maintain law and order.”

Following the election, on February 10, Pakistan experienced another significant X outage amidst mounting evidence of election rigging and criticism of the country’s polling process by political critics.

In a surprising turn, Liaqat Ali Chattha, the commissioner of Rawalpindi, admitted to manipulating election results and “personally supervising” the switching of 70,000 votes, stating, “we converted the losers into winners.” Chattha announced his intention to surrender to the police in light of his admission.

The perpetrators behind the recent X outages remain unknown, and the company, owned by Elon Musk, has not publicly commented on the situation.

The background leading up to the election has been tumultuous. Nine days prior, Imran Khan, a prominent leader and founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for exposing state secrets. Following Khan’s conviction, PTI candidates were forced to run as independents due to a ban on the party’s symbol, causing accessibility issues in a country where 62% of the population is illiterate.

Khan’s main opponent, Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, was cleared of longstanding charges before the election. Despite these challenges, PTI-backed candidates received the most votes, winning 93 of 264 seats. However, due to the individual candidacy format, PML-N emerged as the largest single-party winner with 75 seats, prompting claims of victory from both sides.

The aftermath of Chattha’s confession has sparked calls for Pakistan to review its election results, with PTI demanding the resignation of the country’s chief election commissioner and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) calling for an inquiry into the allegations of election rigging.

The election process was marred by violence, with 28 people killed in political attacks in Balochistan province alone. These incidents, part of a broader wave of election-related violence, included bombings near electoral offices, a soldier killed in a shooting on Election Day, and the deaths of five police officers in Dera Ismail Khan, where grenades were thrown at local polling stations.