General elections or generals’ elections?
PTI senator calls for probe into polls of 2018 and 2024
Leader of the opposition in the Senate, Shibli Faraz
GIVING voice to sentiments of a large number of voters, a senior legislator has called for judicial investigation into allegations of rigging raised against the general elections of both 2018 and 2024. A large number of people feel that establishment resorted to pre-polling as well as polling-day rigging to ensure Imran Khan’s victory in the 2018 polls but used the same tactics to bring about his “defeat” in the elections this year.
While the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) was reportedly cheated out of an electoral victory back in 2018, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was meted out the same treatment in this year’s elections.
Several mainstream news organisations reported that leader of the opposition in Senate, Syed Shibli Faraz of the PTI, raised the issue on the floor of the house on Monday. “Let us move a joint resolution for the formation of a judicial commission to probe what happened in the 2018 and 2024 elections,” he said after parliamentary leader of the PML-N Irfan Siddiqui defended the new law aimed to regulate public assembly in Islamabad.
He alleged that Forms 47 had been manipulated on a massive scale in this year’s polls to bring the PML-N into power, and challenged the PML-N and Pakistan People’s Party to hold a rally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “You won’t be able to gather more than two to three thousand people,” Senator Faraz said.
Criticising the government, he said it cannot take major decisions. “You can walk with crutches, but you cannot run,” he remarked. Citing an example, he pointed out that both Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb have given economic revival plans.
He said the government appears to be in a state of complete confusion as it does not know where to go. “When you don’t know where you are going, all the routes take you nowhere,” he remarked.
Senator Faraz said that while the economy is in a shambles the government is utilising all its resources to contain PTI and persecute its leadership. He said no election tribunal has decided poll petitions although six months have passed since the elections. He accused the government of making anti-people legislation.
While an analyst did not approve of Senator Faraz’s act of unnecessarily using rhetoric to paint the government in a bad light, he agreed with the former’s contention that elections both in 2018 and 2024 were tainted. “Therefore, the idea of having a judicial commission look into the matter should be welcomed.
“We have been witnessing since long how one or two individuals make all the decisions regarding the elections. I mean how long will we have a couple of influential people change the people’s mandate as per their whims? This needs to stop. Period.”