By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan, who is serving a 30-year jail term on charges of leaking state secrets and corruption, issued a defiant message through his family on Tuesday, accusing his rivals of orchestrating the “mother of all riggings” in the general election held last week.
Khan, who was ousted from power in 2022 by a parliamentary vote of no confidence, said that his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, had faced an unprecedented campaign of intimidation, censorship and fraud, but had still managed to win the most seats in the National Assembly, only to be robbed of its victory by “illegal tactics and methods”.
“Elections 2024 were characterised as the mother of all riggings (Pre-Poll, Election Day and Post-Poll Riggings), whereby there was an attempt to decimate a party, not allowed to hold rallies, its symbol taken away, its workers abducted and forced to denounce support, and yet, it beat all the odds to emerge victorious after which all illegal tactics and methods were employed to steal the public mandate,” Khan said in a statement released on his X (formerly Twitter) account.
According to the official results announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan on Feb. 10, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif emerged as the largest party in the National Assembly with 79 seats, followed by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari with 54 seats. However, Khan’s supporters, who ran as independents, won 93 seats, making them the largest bloc in the assembly.
The former premier accused Sharif’s party of making the “mother of all u-turns” by allying with the powerful military establishment that has ruled much of Pakistan’s history.
“PML-N’s journey from “vote ko izzat do” to “boot ko izzat do” is perhaps the mother of all u-turns.”
Khan claimed that he had a “substantial amount of evidence” of election rigging, provided by the officials who conducted the polls, and urged the public to “take revenge for every injustice with your vote on February 8 while remaining peaceful”.
“We have a substantial amount of evidence of election rigging, also provided to us by the officials who conducted the elections,” he said. “Pakistan has also now seen the mother of all selections, where criminals have been given a clean chit in their cases, while Imran Khan has been booked under hundreds of bogus cases and sentenced to 30 years in prison under frivolous charges.”
Khan’s message came as his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf demanded the formation of a judicial commission to investigate the allegations of election rigging made by a former senior official in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
The official, Liaquat Ali Chattha, who served as the commissioner until he was transferred on Saturday, accused the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Qazi Faez Isa, of being involved in manipulating the results of the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections, which were marred by controversy and violence.
Chattha claimed that he had supervised the changing of the results of 13 National Assembly constituencies in six districts of Rawalpindi Division, where candidates who were losing were made to win and vice versa.
His allegations, which were denied by the ECP and the chief justice, added another layer of dispute to the already contested elections, which the PTI and other opposition parties have challenged.
Some international observers also raised concerns over the transparency and credibility of the elections, which were disrupted by a day-long suspension of cellular services, the detention of political activists, and reports of violence and terror threats.
“It is high time that sense prevails,” Khan said in his statement. “Honour the public will and respect their mandate before we become a laughing stock in front of the world.”
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