Judicial commission: ‘Imran’s politics is helping Nawaz get a second term’

‘Report is an achievement for electoral reforms’.

MULTAN:

Though the findings of the judicial commission on electoral rigging were impartial, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan will use them for propaganda purposes to further his cause. This was said by former PTI president Javed Hashmi on Monday.

He was talking to newsmen at the office of former union council nazim Haji Attaur Rehman in Khanewal.

Hashmi said the commission’s report was an achievement for electoral reforms.

“No one was expecting the commission to find systematic and widespread rigging,” he said. “The commission’s report highlights the procedural problems in the 2013 general elections,” he said. “Everyone knows the current system for elections is far from flawless,” he said. He said steps should be taken to address the problems pointed out in the commissions report.

He said the commission’s report had disappointed scores of PTI supporters.

“Imran had promised his supporters a new way,” he said. “He promised them honesty and accountability but his actions have showed that he is no different from the politicians he is up against.”

He said the PTI was being run by feudal lords and retired army generals.

Hashmi said, “It was my fear that Imran would use the youth of the country to achieve destructive goals,” he said. “When PTI leaders genuinely believe their own propaganda, how can we stop their supporters from feeling they have been wronged?”

He said the PTI had said every election in the country had been rigged.

He said the judicial commission had been formed with consensus of all political parties. He said all political parties had expressed satisfaction with the commission’s findings.

“Only the PTI raised objections over it,” he said. He said voters should not be discouraged this way.

He said PTI’s politics had ensured that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz would form another government in 2018.

“Imran’s politics helped Nawaz,” he said.

He said Khan should stop behaving like a stooge. “[Khan] has been used and discarded like tissue paper,” Hashmi said.

Hashmi said it was a time for serious reflection by the PTI chairman.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2015.