“We have expressed our confidence in the new CEC but at the same time we have made it clear that we have no confidence in the other [four] members of the ECP,” said PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi after a meeting with the CEC on Tuesday. “We have conveyed our concerns to the CEC, and we hope that he will succeed in holding free and fair elections in the country,” he added.
Qureshi pointed out that “restoration of ECP’s credibility is a big challenge for the new CEC”. The credibility of every election since 1970 had been called into question, he said, adding that the PTI had launched its struggle for the overhaul of the electoral system so that no one could misuse the ballot.
Asked about investigations into alleged rigging in some constituencies, Qureshi referred to Hamid Khan’s constituency in Lahore and said that “it took Hamid Khan one and a half month to trace polling bags of his constituency, while some are still missing”.
Qureshi said the PTI delegation has told the CEC about their party’s bitter experiences during and after the 2013 elections. In order to substantiate his viewpoint, he referred to election tribunals which had failed to meet the deadline for deciding electoral disputes.
Reiterating his party’s demand for resignation of the ECP members, he said that after the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the powers of the CEC had been curtailed, and he is merely one member among five.
“These members should step down on their own as they have become controversial,” said Qureshi. Citing the example of former CEC Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, he said that Ebrahim had stepped down when members of the commission did not let him work independently.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2014.
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We are corrupt to the core. How can we find several thousand honest people in Pakistan to conduct the full election process to the satisfaction of all parties? Should we lease or outsource the elections? Like a broken record I have been saying that we are corrupt to the core and no single person can uplift us out of our plight. Let us stop lying and stop fooling the public. It is ironic that popular parties used to have only one demand from the dictators, hold elections even under their dictatorship. The losing parties don't want elections and they have lots of excuses even under a neutral govt.