'NAB tried to use EC against Benazir, Asif'

ISLAMABAD (Online) The former Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan has said that the National Accountability Bureau tried to use ECP to proceed against late former Premier Benazir Bhutto and incumbent President Asif Zardari in 2005.
In interviews to two different private TV channels, former ECP Secretary Kanwar Dilshad claimed that the bureau forced the ECP to file fraud cases against the couple. In 2005, NAB pressurised us to file cases against Benazir and Zardari for filing wrong assets. But we refused to do so because we believed our impartiality would be affected, Dilshad stated.
The then NAB Chairman Shahid Aziz agreed with the Election Commissions viewpoint, but after much convincing, he said. No candidate ever raised objection against the candidature of Zardari. Mushahid Hussain was the candidate of the PML-Q and Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui was the candidate of the PML-N. Both of them did not file any complain to the ECP to reject the nomination papers of Zardari, said Dilshad. It has been very clear in the law that once the candidatures are accepted of any candidate by the Election Commission, no appeal can be filed against them, he said.
Kanwar said the NAB high-ups declared as wrong the assets of President Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto, adding that the NAB said the accounts statements given by Benazir Bhutto in 1997 and Zardari in 1993 were incorrect, hence the Election Commission should register a case against them. Dilshad said the EC cannot be a party against anyone and is not authorised to take any step to this effect. The former EC official said the NAB provided 200-page asset details to the Commission but, later on as EC Secretary, when he met the then NAB Chairman Lt Gen Shahid Aziz to clarify to him the situation, he withdrew the report and abolished the pressure on the EC.