JHANG: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Wednesday lamented that his efforts to introduce electronic voting machines (EVMs) to ensure transparent polls in Pakistan were scuttled by “powerful quarters”, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and the major political parties who allegedly endorsed rigging.

“When I was in government, I tried really hard for 2.5 years to introduce EVMs for free and fair polls in Pakistan… [which] would have allowed us to organise transparent elections,” Imran Khan said while addressing a political gathering in Jhang in connection with by-polls on July 17.

The two political families — Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz — ruling Pakistan for the past 35 years opposed these reforms to save their “fake votes”, he claimed. Mr Khan alleged that ECP head Sikandar Sultan Raja also joined hands with these parties against the EVMs even though it was the “job of the ECP to ensure fair polls”.

“And those people who have been in power in this country for quite some time… those who influence the results of election whenever they want to, they also opposed these voting machines,” the former prime minister alleged without naming anyone.

Ex-PM says will defeat turncoat-umpire nexus despite all odds

Taking a dig at the CEC, Mr Khan said the election commissioner should have resigned after the “massively rigged local government elections” in Sindh. He alleged the police did not allow his party candidates to contest on at least 15 per cent of the total seats and that the Sindh election commissioner was allegedly on the payroll of the provincial government.

Imran Khan also criticised the CEC for opposing “open voting” in the Senate election despite instructions from the Supreme Court. He claimed that CEC Raja was also “secretly meeting” PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz and Hamza Shehbaz ahead of the by-polls.

The PTI chairman regretted that his party was not busy planning to bring out maximum voters on polling day as should be the case in any developed country but instead it was busy planning how to counter rigging on the day of the election. “We are training our polling agents to block rigging at polling stations with a special focus on polling stations reserved for women,” he added.

Mr Khan, again, referred to ‘Mr X’ and ‘Mr Y’ and said they had been “ordered to facilitate the victory” of the PML-N in the by-election. He claimed that the PTI nominees were not only contesting elections against ‘turncoats’ but were also taking on ‘umpires’ who planned to pave way for the victory of the PML-N candidates.

The PTI chairman said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz were trying to save themselves from corruption cases to the tune of Rs16 billion cases.

Addressing a separate gathering in Jhang City, the PTI chairman warned the establishment against creating hurdles in the way of peaceful protests taken out by the supporters of the PTI. He added if attempts were made to stop the protesters then it could push the country towards anarchy.

In an allusion to the PTI’s long march on May 25, Imran Khan said police officials and Rangers personnel fired tear gas shells and rubber bullets on unarmed protesters. Mr Khan warned that Pakistan could experience a Sri Lanka-like political crisis and added the nation would not forgive those who with the alleged help of the US imposed ‘crooks’ on the country.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2022