By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party led by former prime minister Imran Khan, demanded on Sunday the formation of a judicial commission to investigate the allegations of election rigging made by a former senior official in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital.
The official, Liaquat Ali Chattha, who served as the commissioner of Rawalpindi 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, claiming that they were deprived of their mandate through “massive rigging”.
Gohar Khan, a senior PTI leader, said the party had won 180 seats in the National Assembly, 42 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 115 in Punjab, 16 in Sindh and four in Balochistan, but that its success was not reflected in the results of the polls.
“We were given one seat in Balochistan, three are due. In Sindh, we did not get a single seat, they are all due. In Punjab, around 50 seats are due,” Gohar Khan said at a news conference in Islamabad on Sunday.
He asserted that after the votes cast were counted, there was a deliberate delay in announcing the provisional results and that the PTI’s majority in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan was diluted or removed.
“This is why, from day one, we have only one demand — that results be declared in accordance with the Form 45,” he said, referring to the official document that records the votes cast at each polling station.
Commenting on the allegations by Chattha, the PTI leader said they had corroborated what the PTI had been saying all along and that they had exposed the “nexus” between the ECP, the chief justice and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
“This is the first time a commissioner is raising his voice according to his conscience. And he said that he made sure candidates who lost were made to win while those who won were made to lose. This corroborates what we have been saying.”
Gohar Khan demanded that a judicial commission be formed and an inquiry be conducted into the election rigging allegations and that those involved be made to join the inquiry.
He said that the PTI was not calling for the resignation of the chief justice, but that he should “recuse himself” from any cases related to the elections.
“That is why the PTI demands that a judicial commission is formed and an inquiry is conducted. And not just an inquiry, but those [involved] should be made to join the inquiry.”
‘Hate and violence’
However, a senior leader of PML-N accused the PTI of inciting hate and violence against government officials.
Malik Ahmad Khan said at a press conference that the Khan’s PTI was endangering the lives of the officials and their families by exposing their photos on social media and urging its supporters to attack them.
He called on the caretaker government, which is supposed to ensure a smooth transition of power after the elections, to take action against the PTI and prevent any further chaos.
“The PTI has the same character as Pablo Escobar, the notorious Colombian drug lord who used his cartels and mafia to gain political influence,” Ahmad Khan said. “There is no difference.”
He said the Rawalpindi commissioner was not a relevant authority in the electoral process and his allegations were part of a “dangerous campaign” to discredit the ECP and the judiciary.
Ahmad Khan said the PTI was following the same pattern of “anarchic behavior” that it had shown on May 9, 2023, when violent clashes erupted across the country after Khan was briefly arrested on corruption charges.
“May 9 was a black day in our history,” he said. “These people are not refraining from their anarchic behavior.”
He said that the government officials who performed their duties in the elections were the “steel framework of the state machinery” and they should not be threatened or harassed by the PTI.
“You are threatening them, you are threatening their lives,” he said. “You are saying that the workers of a political party go after them, stop them, attack their offices and homes, you are inciting this.”
Ahmad Khan urged the caretaker government to “preempt this” and take action against the PTI before it was too late.
“What are you waiting for?” he said. “If you think that there will be no consequences of the incitement, then we are living in cuckoo’s land.”
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