Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood on Monday asked the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja and all ECP members to immediately resign for failing to conduct fair and transparent elections in the country.
Addressing a press conference, along with Senator Shibli Faraz and Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, he said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had lost the trust of all political parties. The CEC and members should leave their offices and make way for parliament to put a new team in place to check corrupt practices in the polling process, thus ensuring transparency in future elections.
Shafqat Mahmood said Prime Minister Imran Khan had been demanding the Senate election through open balloting from day one to eradicate corruption and despite political differences he even supported Nawaz Sharif when he gave a suggestion in 2013 to that effect.
He said the sale and purchase of assembly members was witnessed in the 2018 Senate election as well. Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was the only party in the country’s history which had taken action against its provincial assembly members for their involvement in corrupt practices.
Same was the case in the recent Senate elections, where money was used to buy the loyalties of assembly members, he added.
The minister said the government approached the Supreme Court, which in its decision held that it was the responsibility of the Election Commission to take all measures for ensuring fair and transparent Senate elections.
He said a PTI delegation approached the Election Commission to push for steps in light of the SC decision. But Yousuf Raza Gillani won the election for the Senate’s general seat from Islamabad despite a clear minority.
He said after the apex court’s ruling that it was a good opportunity for the Election Commission to ensure fair and transparent Senate elections. The CEC and all the ECP members should now resign as they did not fulfill their responsibilities despite the SC’s instructions, he added.
The government, however, would not file any reference against the Election Commission chief and members, he said.
“We want the ECP to play the role of a neutral umpire, which it is not doing,” he said, adding that although the Supreme Court had given an “opportunity” to the ECP which it could have utilised and taken measures to make the Senate polls fair, the body did not do so and “hurt our democracy”.
The ECP and the PTI-led government have been on a collision course since before the Senate elections, after the commission decided to hold the March 3 polls through secret ballot due to what it called “time constraints”.
After key PTI candidate Hafeez Shaikh suffered defeat in the election, Prime Minister Imran Khan in a televised address to the nation accused the ECP of “damaging democracy” and criticised the body over use of secret ballot for polling.
Responding to the premier, the ECP chided the PTI for being upset over the election result and asked the party’s leadership to stop mudslinging against institutions and accept its defeat.
However, the government upped the ante against the commission, with members of the prime minister’s cabinet saying at a press conference that the ECP should not be “saddened” but “ashamed” at having allegedly failed to hold fair and transparent Senate elections.
Shafqat also condemned the attack on Special Assistant to the PM Shehbaz Gill in the Lahore High Court premises, saying the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had a ‘black history’ of such violence against its opponents. It was the PML-N, whose workers and leaders had attacked the Supreme Court, and had thrashed the workers of former prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo with chairs.
