PTI delegation meets new election chief

PTI's Shah Mehmood Qureshi says they informed the CEC about their bitter experiences during and after 2013 elections

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is pinning high hopes on newly appointed Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Sardar Raza for holding free and fair elections in the country.

However, the party says it does not have any confidence in the other members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

“We have expressed our confidence in the new CEC, but at the same time we have made it clear that we are showing no confidence in the other [four] members of the ECP,” PTI vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said after a meeting with the CEC on Tuesday.

“We shared our concerns with the CEC … and we are hopeful that he would succeed in holding free and fair elections in the country,” he added.

“This was the first meeting, and the CEC gave us sufficient time. However, all issues cannot be discussed in one meeting,” he said.

Qureshi requested the CEC to clean up the commission of controversial members, adding that the [CEC] should start this process.

The PTI is the first party whose delegation has formally met the newly appointed CEC, and apprised him with the issues they are facing as well as with proposals.

Though the CEC is facing multifaceted challenges in the backdrop of PTI’s ongoing campaign against alleged rigging in the 2013 general elections, Qureshi pointed out that “restoration of the ECP’s credibility would be a big challenge for the new CEC.”

The PTI leader also said there had been a question mark on the credibility of every single election after 1970, adding that PTI has launched its struggle for the betterment of the system so that the ballot is never misused in future.

While talking about investigations into the rigging allegations in some constituencies, Qureshi referred to PTI member Hamid Khan’s constituency (NA-125) in Lahore, saying, “It took Hamid Khan a month-and-a-half to trace polling bags of his constituency, and some are still missing.”

“We informed the CEC about our bitter experiences during and after the elections, and said that the ECP has to have its own viewpoint on all election-related issues,” he added.

In order to substantiate his point, he referred to election tribunals that had failed to meet deadlines in deciding disputes, and said the deadline is going to expire in December and yet many decisions were pending.

“It is our right, being citizens and being candidates, to have details of ECP’s Form no 14 and Form no 15 (these forms are used in compilation of results).”

In response to a question regarding PTI’s demand for the resignations of all four members of the ECP, except the CEC, Qureshi said, “There is a legal side of the issue which we understand, but these members should step down on their own on moral grounds as they have become controversial.”

“The former CEC had to step down when members of the commission did not let him work independently,” Qureshi said in reference to former CEC Justice (retd) Fakharuddin G Ebrahim.

Stressing his party’s demand for the resignation of ECP members, Qureshi said the powers of the CEC had been curtailed after the 18^th constitutional amendment, and he is a mere one member among five.