After their meeting at the PTI leader Jahangir Tareen's residence on Friday evening, government’s lead negotiator, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that consensus could not be reached on three clauses.
“We deliberated over the observation, clause by clause, and both parties agreed on the draft proposal, except for three clauses. We will hold another meeting tomorrow [Saturday] and will hopefully overcome the differences and reach on a positive conclusion.”
Both sides had agreed to form a judicial commission through an ordinance to probe the May 2013 elections. However, the government and the PTI have yet to finalise the terms of references for the commission.
“We will meet tomorrow, with good intentions, and will try to reach consensus,” said PTI vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
He added that the kind of flexibility that the PTI, and its chairman Imran Khan, have shown in recent days, they were expecting that government will show similar flexibility.
“In my honest opinion, if there is any further delay in this agreement, then it will not reach its logical conclusion,” he warned.
According to Express News correspondent Sohail Chaudhry, negotiations between PTI and government ended without any resolution on Friday as both parties failed to reach to an agreement over the status unverified votes as both sides try to finalise the terms of references for probing the May 2013 elections.
Government is of the opinion that if a large number of unverifiable votes are discovered during the audit of 2013 general elections, it will be termed a ‘conspiracy.’ The PTI’s stance is that if such votes are discovered, it would be called rigging.
PTI further alleged that the government has removed some clauses from the ordinance which would pave the way for a Judicial Commission to audit the 2013 polls. PTI and the government had agreed to form a judicial commission through an ordinance.
Another point of contention between the parties is that, if the judicial commission finds that the elections were rigged, how its decision will be implemented since Article 225 of the Constitution will pose a hurdle.
Under article 225, election disputes can only be resolved by an election tribunal.
Article 225 reads, “No election to a House or a Provincial Assembly shall be called in question except by an election petition presented to such tribunal and in such manner as may be determined by Act of 1[Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament)].”
COMMENTS (20)
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@Usman Sure go ahead and try to put PMLN in trash and see what happens! Point is that there are very many people that support this party including myself so you should not try to tell me that you can throw my party in trash when I am sitting here to protect it. System is not corrupt, people are corrupt. System is not bad, people are bad, people like generals who run over Governments in midnight, dont let institutions grow, take 30% of budget and yet lose every war or people like mullah canada who pay people to revolt etc etc. System will be fine when institutions will grow and that will only happen in stability. 2018 is not too far get out and put PMLN to trash by voting and i will get out and vote as well and we will see who has more.
Just like we have declared war on terrorism, & hatred. We need to declare a war on Corruption & Nepotism, there is no room for that in 21st century Pakistan, we should start with ruling parties & their supporters as they are so keen to maintain this corrupt,and dirty system.
@Adnan Siddiqi: Do you mean the London Plan signed by Nawaz Sharif & Benazir Bhutto? PMLN/PPP are decrepit,corrupt,incompetent parties who do not belong in the 21st century like the Pakistani Republican Party,PMLQ, these 2 shall be heaped unto the trash bin, as they are incapable of understanding the mindset of the 21st century Pakistani
@Inqliaab: Only Troll here seems to be you but who am I to get down to your level of name calling! The fact is that Imran made serious allegations regarding every one and said PMLN was brought in to power. Judicial comission must investigate weather there was an Organized rigging or not! what is the problem here? What happened in individual seats is ECP's role.
Ik is only true leader that pakistan ever produce. IK truly the luv for his country. I do not understand one thing if pmln did not rigg election why r they so afraid to open boxes. Thief always scare from thing to get open. Every One KNOW Nawaz DID Stole Election WITH HELP Of Saudi Arabia N India. If nawaz is my a man enough he should open every boxes in election but nawaz is a coward leader n he is making pakistani ppl coward too.
Any vote that did not go to PTI is "rigging".
Let's assume for a moment that IK is incompetent and confused. Should we still refer to rigging as conspiracy?
Contain your anger and hate and start focusing on system cleanup.
Imran Khan's brand of politics is dead in Pakistan . We have not have any appetite left for miscreants taking over the streets with sticks and weapons and using hate speech. All appetite for what Imran Khan Niazi has to offer is over!
Definition of rigging?!??! Seriously? Wow this is truly unbelievable! Only in Pakistan can politicians find it worthy to 'define' rigging. Open the dictionary Mian Saab. We all know you cheated your way through school as well but now would be a good time to expand your limited sell-serving vocabulary. You disgust me as much as those sick Taliban extremists.
PML(N) team is negotiating with PTI robots remote-controlled by a 63-yo stubborn kid who is determined to veto any ToRs which do not guarantee him the PM's resignation. This is all personal so those who are eager to blame PML(N) for these snags need to remove their blindfolds and try to see the truth about IK's Schizophrenic and egotistic mindset!
Lol, knew it from the start, the judiciary is hand in gloves with the government, they will do anything to save this illegal government, from now on every bit of proof is going to be shrugged off as 'irregularities' and these N trolls @Adnan Siddiqi: @Saqib: @H Chaudhry: will keep spouting their hatred.
@Shahid: Imran Khan has tried agitation before, and it did not work -- the umpire stood him up.. Of course, with no day-job, he has plenty of time at hand, and can always try that again!!! Hopefully, this time around, people have better things to do than attending the free concerts, and listening to reruns of IK's speeches!!! PTIans won't like it, but the Bitter truth is, these "mandate-changing/massive rigging" accusations are nothing but figment of IK's imagination, and a pre-requisite to any negotiations should have been a proper professional treatment of IK's schizophrenic disorder!
The government and PML-N crushed this insidious attack launched by the enemies of Pakistan via "London Plan" and elements of the local establishment through their "disposable" touts like Rent-a-Mullah from Canada and the dude who claims to have won the world cup "All by Himself" and also happen to have a large following among juveniles who would attain voting age in 2023. The government should not give in to the looney tunes demand of PTI on the negotiating table now. Just Give em' a run around.
Nawaz will not survive another dharna his government will collapse within a few days after announcement of 1 ...pmnl is toothless now
IK blame is that all the institutions are involved in rigging including Election commission, judiciary, interim govt, Media, and even army...so the judicial commission must only be given mandate to find out that either conspiracy theory presented by PTI exists or not...the rigging at individual level does not fall in the category that whole election was rigged...PTI is actually confusing people between these two things
PTI only strength is unverifiable votes due to a mistake by Election Commission..i am unable to understand how election commission incorporated a method (Magnetic Ink) which even dont exists in any country of the world....and this is only thing to which PTI is exploiting and confusing people.....how an unverifiable vote can be considered as rigged vote? and what will even happen if a new election held? how many seats PTI will clinch? it means they only want to remove the govt because they know if NS exists for 5 years , PTI will have no chance for at least next 5 years
IK has been caught in his own little cocoon of hearsay, innuendos, lies, deceit and hatred for Nawaz Sharif. Government will persist with the TORs focusing on alleged "Conspiracy" between personalities and institutions that ultimately benefited Nawaz Sharif. This conspiracy has been the bedrock of IK's claim of rigging since last elections. Why is he running away from it now?
As for IK showing flexibility. After the fiasco in Peshawar which was a direct result of incompetence, criminal negligence of the provisional government not to mention that appeasement of TTP has been a stated policy of PTI and IK, there wasn't much choice left but for IK to abandon the container and his cult worshiping sheep herd clan. Try as much as he can but henceforth, he would be working on the same salary until 2018. It has been decided already.
These negociations will not reach anywhere because Muslim leauge N is not sincere.Eventually Imran khan will have to restart agitation again.The best course is that army forces a new election within three months which will put everything at ease and if done under army supervision results will be acceptable to everyone.
The government should show PTI the door. If PTI has any problems, why is it forcing the government, instead it should approach the Supreme court. PMLn should just concentrate on serving the masses
PTI is trying its best to confuse people and itself between Irregularities that needs to be fixed and Rigging that some one did to get some one elected. Imran is on record saying Ex CJP orchestrated organized rigging to get PMLN in than why not make that the focal point of Judicial commission investigation? Similar, General Kayani was mentioned to help as well as Justice Ramday, Najam Sethi etc. These were serious allegations and Judicial commission MUST investigate if there was an ORGANIZED rigging or not. What is problem of this definition of Rigging? Election irregularities should also be investigated by commission for fix but Only way Govt losses right to Govern is if an Organized rigging is found done by Ex CJG/Army Chief etc. Govt can not and will not go based on irregularities found here and there.