Fawad announces boycott of general elections

Former information minister Fawad Chaudhry on Monday announced that he and his “group” would completely boycott the upcoming general elections, terming the electoral process fake.

The imprisoned politician made the remarks in a handwritten letter addressed to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), a copy f which was posted on his official social media platform X account. In the letter, Fawad stated, “Under these circumstances, my group and I announce a complete boycott of these elections.”

 It was not immediately clear which group he was referring to.

Read: Tribunals reject Fawad, Murad's nomination papers appeal

Fawad was arrested from Islamabad on Nov 4 in a corruption case and has been in custody since.
In his letter, Fawad recalled that the ECP had failed to hold elections in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab last year after the respective provincial assemblies had been dissolved.

“The aim of elections is to provide the public with the authority to ‘choose’,” he stated.

Terming it a “waste of time” to demand resignations from the ECP officials, Fawad asserted that the ECP had “failed horribly in fulfilling its responsibilities”.

“A government formed through such elections will not only be deprived of a moral but legal mandate as well, and would not at all have the capability to fight the country’s crises and challenges,” he said.