KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday condemned the alleged pre-poll rigging by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and its ministers in Azad Jammu & Kashmir general elections and warned that this “controversial victory” would make his party redouble its efforts for transparent democracy in the country beginning with accountability for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s offshore companies.
“From distribution of transformers through office-bearers to use of funds of the Kashmir Council, the federal government led by the PML-N used all unconstitutional and illegal means to steal the mandate of the people of Kashmir,” Zardari said. He said that despite such heavy rigging and manipulations by the federal government the PPP accepted the results to keep the democratic process going in the larger national interest. He reaffirmed PPP’s commitment to the Kashmir cause regardless of election results and said that Kashmir was the heart of Pakistan and the PPP.
The PPP chairman said his party would stand guard against the attempts of the PML-N government to weaken the democracy by trampling the electoral system and introducing tools to snatch the mandate of the people. He said that transparent democracy could only be ensured when independent investigations are conducted into the Panama leaks. He said that all countries mentioned in the leaks initiated investigations against their top leaders. “But here in Pakistan, the PML-N government is trying to hush up the Panama leaks issue and evade the inquiry into their offshore companies,” he said.