130 activists, including lawyers and journalists, have submitted a signed letter to the Commonwealth Secretary on Thursday expressing concern over the release of the Commonwealth Observatory Group report on the 2024 General Elections after a 19-month delay. The Commonwealth, the COG report released earlier this week, cited it also cited the election night suspension of cellular services, which undermined transparency and delayed results.
The report cited “restrictions that curtailed fundamental political rights and hindered one party’s ability to contest fairly”.
The letter circulating on social media has been shared by some of the signatories expressed concern about the extraordinary delay in the report’s publication, noting that election reports are published routinely without any delay.
“We 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,” the letter read.
The letter stated that back in 2013, the general election report was published in June 9, 39 days after polling, while in 2018, the report was published within the same year.
“More recent reports for other countries were all published earlier, despite Pakistan’s election having taken place prior,” the letter added. “These include Sri Lanka (published December 2024), Ghana (published March 2025), and Trinidad and Tobago (published July 2025).
“We 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.”
The letter stated that back in 2013, the general election report was published on June 9th, 39 days after polling, while in 2018, the report was published within the same year.
The letter further noted that withholdings reported were related to Section 6.3 of the revised Commonwealth Guidelines and Section 6.7 of the Commonwealth Handbook on Election Observations. According to these regulations, election reports shall be issued on time and then made public.
“This damning admission that the report was shared with the perpetrators of election fraud but withheld from the victims of that fraud — Pakistani voters, opposition parties and civil society — constitutes a betrayal of the Commonwealth Charter’s commitments to democracy and human rights, and undermines the credibility of election observation itself,” the letter stated.
“The report confirmed that ‘decisions 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,’” the letter read.
Moreover, on September 14, the Commonwealth issued a statement acknowledging that the letter was shared with the Federal Government and the Election Commission of Pakistan.
“This damning admission that the report was shared with the perpetrators of election fraud but withheld from the victims of that fraud — Pakistani voters, opposition parties and civil society — constitutes a betrayal of the Commonwealth Charter’s commitments to democracy and human rights, and undermines the credibility of election observation itself,” the letter stated.
The signatories also observed that including restrictions on fundamental political rights, such as freedom of association, reduced transparency in the electoral process due to the telecommunications blackout, discrepancies in polling results, limited journalistic freedoms, and the mass arrest of PTIA members.
Read more: Azad Kashmir row: Pakistan’s Sana Mir trigger Indian fans
Additionally, the report noted the COG was “immensely concerned by allegations [of judicial interference] and by the possibility that such interference may have occurred in relation to election-related court cases”.
“The 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,” the letter read.
130 Pakistani lawyers, journalists and civil society members have submitted a formal letter to the Commonwealth Secretariat demanding an inquiry into the 19 month delay in publication of the COG report on the Pak Elections 2024. pic.twitter.com/wOI3DWhwyE
— khadija siddiqi (@khadijasid751) October 2, 2025
“Instead, 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.”
The letter calls the Commonwealth Secretariat to commission an independent inquiry into the 19-month delay in publishing the report, adopt a policy to automatically publish observer reports within a fixed time frame, refer this issue to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group and place it on the agenda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, and issue an apology to the people of Pakistan for failing them at a critical moment in their history.
In a statement issued on September 14, the COG said it was aware that a version of its report on the 2024 Pakistan General Elections is circulating online, but that it did not comment on leaked documents as a matter of policy.