Senate poll procedure change: Govt earns rare praise from PTI

Imran says his party will not be present in parliament to vote for the constitutional amendment

ISLAMABAD:

The government earned rare praise from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Tuesday over its decision to replace secret balloting with a show of hands in the upcoming Senate elections.

“The proposal for a show of hands in the Senate elections is good and should be implemented as early as possible,” said Imran before flying off to the UAE to attend an investment conference in Dubai.

A day earlier, the government said it was ready to start working on a constitutional amendment required to enforce the change, but the PTI chairman reminded it not to forget his longstanding demand for constitution of a judicial commission to probe alleged rigging in the 2013 elections before March 5.



Under Article 226 of the Constitution, all elections other than those of the prime minister and the chief minister must be held by secret ballot.

Earlier, Imran had criticised the procedure, saying it would open up floodgates for political horse-trading and taint the Senate polls. Instead, the PTI chief called for an open ballot – a demand that can only be met after amending the Constitution.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had signalled his approval for such a constitutional amendment which the PTI says is necessary to eliminate vote-buying and discourage political horse-trading.

Subsequently, almost every single political party has welcomed the move but cast doubts over the government’s intent, saying the procedure was not that simple. The Senate elections involve several technicalities like first, second and third preferences and transfer of surplus votes of a winning candidate to the next one.

Though the government has constituted two committees of federal ministers to approach political parties for paving way for the constitutional amendment, the PTI would not be participating in that process.

The PTI had already resigned from the National Assembly as well as provincial assemblies except Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) over alleged electoral fraud and has linked its decision of returning to the parliament with the constitution of judicial commission.

“We will not return to the assemblies unless the government sets up the judicial commission to probe the allegations of rigging in the general elections,” Imran said.

He alleged that the ruling PML-N had stuffed over seven million bogus votes in the elections and claimed that “we will prove that before the judicial commission”.

Addressing the media about the investment conference in Dubai, Imran said he would urge businessmen for investments in K-P and the provincial government would provide adequate security. The one-day event has been organised by the K-P government.

While talking about the issues of people from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), Imran referred to his meeting with the K-P governor and elders of the area and said they were facing horrific conditions despite their sacrifices.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2015.