Pakistan politician gives up seat

ISLAMABAD, Feb 15 (BBC): A Pakistan politician who won a seat in last week's controversial national elections has given it up because he says the vote was rigged in his favour.
Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman of the Jamaat-e-Islami party had been named the victor of the provincial assembly seat PS-129 in the city of Karachi. But this week he claimed the candidate backed by Imran Khan's PTI party had secured far more votes and that their tally had been reduced.
As such he would relinquish the seat. "If anyone wants to make us win in an illegitimate manner, we will not be accepting that," Mr Rehman said at a press conference held by his party on Monday.
He added: "Public opinion should be respected, let the winner win, let the loser lose, no one should get anything extra." He said that while he had received more than 26,000 votes, the independent candidate Saif Bari, backed by the PTI, had received 31,000 votes - but these were presented as 11,000 votes.
Pakistani electoral authorities have denied the allegations. It is unclear who will take up the PS-129 seat now.
But the incident is just the latest highlighting the crisis around Pakistan's elections held last Thursday, which have been marred by allegations of widespread vote fraud and interference, which were said to have damaged candidates affiliated with Khan.
The former prime minister has been in jail since last August and his party was disqualified from the ballot, meaning that PTI candidates had to run as independents.
But despite these hurdles, voters overwhelmingly turned out across the country to cast votes in favour of his cause.