Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday wrote a letter to National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, asking him to form an electoral reform committee in a bid to bring transparency to the elections.

“The recent Senate elections have highlighted once again the scourge of vote purchasing in the prevailing non-transparent manner of conducting elections,” the premier said in the letter, and highlighted that the treasury bench had submitted a bill for ‘meaningful electoral reforms to remove the prevailing stigma attached to our electoral process’. “I would request you to immediately form an inter-party parliamentary committee to discuss these reforms and come to an agreement on how to introduce best practices including the use of technology and introduction of EVMs (electronic voting machines) to strengthen our electoral system and democracy,” he said.

The prime minister said the task should be completed in a definitive timeframe so that enough time is given to the relevant institution to bring reforms before the next general elections. He highlighted that the government had moved the Supreme Court in this regard and the judiciary directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to ensure transparent, fair, and free elections and stated that secrecy of the ballot was not absolute. “Unfortunately, the ECP paid no heed to the SC judgment and failed to carry out fair and free Senate elections,” he lamented. “The malaise of our prevailing electoral system including but not limited to the free flow of money to purchase votes has been the subject of critique after all elections with the losers declaring the results to have been rigged,” he added.

Imran Khan said the practice had begun to destroy the entire ‘credibility of all elections in Pakistan’ casting a shadow of doubt over our entire democratic process as well as the functioning of our parliamentary system. “It is in the interest of democracy in Pakistan to establish a credible and transparent electoral system and put an end to all venues that allow for corrupt practices that are eroding our parliamentary democracy,” he said.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Wednesday invited the opposition to take a step forward in the parliament and initiate dialogue over electoral reforms. In a tweet, he stated that it was a good that the opposition had retreated from the long march as political stability was direly needed in the country. He invited the opposition to take step forward in the parliament, initiate dialogues over electoral reforms through constituting a new election commission and laws. He said that judicial and administrative reforms were the need of the hour and the opposition should give its recommendations in that regard.

However, PML-N stalwart and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that the government, with its talk of an electronic voting system, ‘is devising a new way of stealing elections’. “If someone takes the machines away or makes the data disappear then where will we go?” he asked, as he addressed a press conference alongside Ahsan Iqbal and Marriyum Aurangzeb. He said the people devising these ways are those “who themselves are involved in stealing elections and who themselves came into power after the most controversial elections held in Pakistan’s history”. Abbasi said this is “akin to a wolf taking care of sheep”.

Abbasi also heavily criticised the letter written by Prime Minister Imran Khan to National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser. He said a prime minister “who does not know the decorum of the parliament and neither does he attend its sessions has written to the speaker”. He referred to the letter as “two ignorant men writing to each other” whereas what should be focused on has long been ignored.

The former premier said a month has passed but there is no action against the kidnapping of 20 presiding officers during the NA-75 election in Daska. “And these members of the House are writing to one another saying the election system has been destroyed. The system has always been in place. You must catch the one who destroyed it. You must nab the one who kidnapped the presiding officer in Daska and the one who stole votes. You must catch those who put cameras in the Senate. You must catch those who appointed the presiding officer of the biggest institution’s election – the Senate polls,” said Abbasi.

He went on to say that the presiding officer “did not see instructions that the stamp on votes can be put anywhere inside the candidate’s box on the ballot paper and has made the senate polls controversial”. And now they are talking of electronic voting machines.”