Daily Times

Senator and former interior minister Rehman Malik has reportedly requested Prime Minister Imran Khan, to form a technical committee to probe into the Results Transmission System (RTS) failure on election day, which resulted in the delaying of election results.

According to a private TV channel, in a letter addressed to the PM, Malik mentioned that the Senate had entrusted the Standing Committee on Interior with looking after the elections proceedings, and as the interior minister of the country, Imran Khan is obliged to assist the committee in its probe.

”The committee had asked the Election Commission of Pakistan to investigate the failure of the Results Transmission System (RTS), identify those responsible and suggest action against them”, Malik wrote.

Malik further wrote that it is in the national interest to probe the RTS collapse and asked for directives to be issued to the Cabinet division at the earliest to form a technical committee to probe the matter. Earlier this week, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) held NADRA responsible for the RTS shutdown on July 25th election. The party had reportedly formed an investigative committee headed by PTI Parliamentary leader in the Senate, Azam Swati, to look into the RTS collapse. The ECP, which introduced the software for the July 25 election, faced severe criticism after results were unusually delayed on the election day. Opposition parties have since called the election rigged and urged for a probe into the RTS fault.

Published in Daily Times, August 27^th 2018.