Alleged plot: Govt set to rig upcoming G-B polls, claims Imran

PTI chief says his party will revamp system if elected

ISLAMABAD: The government has made all arrangements to rig the upcoming elections in Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Saturday.

Addressing the G-B Youth Convention, Khan said he was happy that “people want change”. He vowed that if elected to power, his party would revamp the prevailing system. The PTI chief expressed reservations about the government’s decision to install a caretaker government, comprising over a dozen ministers, as well as the decision to appoint the federal minister of Kashmir affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan as G-B governor.

Imran said he would introduce a new system in G-B, where, he claimed, a “bureaucratic government” was ruling after winning the elections.

He promised to transfer power to the people through the local government polls. Recalling the 1971 fall of Dhaka, he said the then East Pakistan had separated from Pakistan because the people were denied their rights.

He said that by looking at Balochistan, it seemed that “we are living in ancient times”. Reiterating the PTI’s demand of conducting free and fair elections, the party chief said: “[Prime Minister] Nawaz Sharif likes to play with his own umpires in the ground.”

Khan said his party had been on the forefront of the struggle for an independent judiciary and had also launched a movement for an independent Election Commission of Pakistan. “We shall bring neutral umpires in politics.”

He criticised the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party for not holding the local government elections during their rule.

“There can be no democracy in the absence of local government polls,” he said. “We shall have to empower the people.”

The PTI chief once again vowed to conduct the local bodies elections in K-P soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2015.