Qaiser hints at grand alliance against ‘rigging’

PTI leader says party will talk to Jamaat-e-Islami, others whose ‘mandate was stolen’

RAWALPINDI/ ISLAMABAD:

 

PTI leader and former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser on Thursday said a grand alliance of political parties would be formed against election “rigging”.

Talking to the media outside Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, Qaiser noted that the PTI would talk with all the parties, whose mandate had been stolen including the Jamaat-e-Islami for the grand alliance, and conduct a campaign in an organised manner. “It is a pity that there is no state here.”

He maintained that those who had succeeded in the elections as per the “original” Forms-45 should have the right to form their government.

“You don’t have the power to form the government and cabinet,” he added while addressing the PML-N led coalition. He regretted that the prison administration did not allow him to meet with PTI founding chairman Imran Khan.

Conceding that his party’s MPAs were sworn in by the governor, he said it was a constitutional requirement.

“The present [federal] cabinet was administered oath by [President] Dr Arif Alvi,” he added, referring to the fact that the head of state belonged to his party.

In a related development, a PTI spokesperson demanded a thorough and impartial audit of the results of the “most rigged” elections in light of the assessment report of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) so as to take the people’s mandate back from the “thieves” and return it to their “rightful representatives”.

In a statement, the PTI spokesperson pointed out that after the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) and Pattan Development Organisation, Pildat in its report “Assessment of the Quality of General Election 2024” raised alarming questions about the transparency, fairness and credibility of the polls and pressed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to answer them.

He stated that the Pildat assessment report showed that the fairness score of the 2024 general elections plummeted to its lowest level since 2013, which was enough to prove the status of the “fake” government based on “rejected” characters.

He added that the Pildat assessment report was an endorsement of the “criminal” role of the electoral watchdog in stealing the public’s mandate through large-scale election “rigging” across the country.
He went on to say that all the factors ranging from delay in the election schedule to the suspension of cellular and internet services across the country on the polling day established that this year’s elections were the least fair ones in the past decade.

The PTI spokesperson recalled that the nefarious scheme of converting the majority into a minority through election “robbery” in the dark of the night by trampling results had already been “unmasked” by the former Rawalpindi commissioner.

He stated that the tampered Forms-45 published by the ECP on its website well after the stipulated time in sheer violation of the Election Act further exposed the “dirty plot” of results “tampering” before the entire nation.

The PTI spokesperson said that an “unconstitutional” government established on a “stolen” mandate neither had the ability, nor the capacity to take tough and solid decisions for the welfare of the nation.
He continued that after depriving the PTI of the seats it won convincingly, the plan to distribute the reserved seats of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) among other political parties would further create political instability and chaos in the country.