ISLAMABAD: The ruling PML-N said on Saturday that the government was ready to form a judicial commission on the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s demand, but only to probe the charges PTI chief Imran Khan had made from atop his container about involvement of certain top government functionaries in alleged rigging in the 2013 general election.

Speaking at a press conference, Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed claimed that the four constituencies about which the PTI had reservations had been opened, and all charges of poll rigging had so far been proved wrong.

“All issues related to vote fraud have been addressed by election tribunals,” he claimed, saying that the judicial commission could be formed only to probe the PTI’s charges about “organised rigging” through “involvement of former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry” and the “role of returning officers and a brigadier”.

A PTI negotiator says his party seeks complete scrutiny and audit of votes, and not just recount

But, he alleged, the PTI chief was not ready to include the charges in the terms of reference (ToRs) for the proposed commission.

Flanked by Minister for Information Technology Anusha Rehman and MNA Danyal Aziz, Mr Rasheed said that the inquiry commission on alleged rigging in the NA-122 constituency had submitted report to the election tribunal. He urged the PTI to accept its verdict because “the commission comprised judges whose names were proposed by Imran Khan”.

In reply to a question, he avoided directly saying whether or not there was still need for formation of the judicial commission and advised the reporters to put the query to Imran Khan.

Giving details of the four constituencies under scrutiny, Danyal Aziz claimed that the two-judge commission had completed its task in the NA-122 Lahore constituency and a new “statement of count” had been issued according to which the number of votes obtained by Ayaz Sadiq, now speaker of the National Assembly, had increased by 135.

He asked the PTI leadership to demonstrate “moral courage” and “apologise” to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for accusing him of telling a lie on the floor of parliament because the allegation had also been proved wrong in the Supreme Court’s judgment.

Mr Aziz said that the recount was made strictly in accordance with the agreement between the representatives of the two candidates in NA-122.

Anusha Rehman said that 93 per cent of the PTI candidates had accepted election results and only the remaining seven per cent had filed petitions before the tribunals, which had issued decisions on 85 per cent of the petitions.

She said that now the PTI wanted to hide itself behind the ToRs of the judicial commission after seeing that all its rigging allegations had been proved wrong. She asked the PTI to “stop media trial” of the PML-N.

Answering a question, Ms Rehman expressed the hope that Imran Khan would not again give the call for a sit-in, keeping in view the past experience which did not provide any benefit to the country or to the PTI itself.

PTI VERSION: On the other hand, PTI leaders have rejected “claims” made by the ruling party and termed them a “pack of lies.”

When contacted, Asad Umer — a member of the PTI’s team for negotiation with the government — rejected assertions of the PML-N leaders and said that the PTI had called for a “complete scrutiny and audit” of votes and not recount.

He rejected Pervaiz Rashid’s claim about the PTI’s unwillingness to include the term “organised rigging” in the judicial commission’s ToRs and said: “The draft jointly prepared by me and the PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal can be seen to prove this.”

To a question, he agreed that the name of the former chief justice or any military official had not been mentioned in the draft, but said that the PTI had no objection if the government wanted to specifically mention them in the ToRs.

PTI’s Information Secretary Dr Shireen Mazari said in a statement that “lies had become norm” for the government, particularly its information minister.

She asked the information minister “not to befool” the nation about the NA-122 and said that he knew that it was not a vote recount but an audit.

“Already major irregularities like 30,000 bogus votes, 100 polling stations with no forms XIV and XV as required under election laws, duplicate ballots with same serial number and the duplicate attested form XIV for same polling station with different results have been exposed,” she said.

“So for Pervaiz Rashid to try and twist the information and lie by claiming it was a vote recount, the government is showing its guilt,” she said and asked the minister to wait till the inquiry commission’s report was made public.

Dr Mazari said the lies and spin doctoring by the government would not work because the PTI had awakened the nation to the rigging and to the need for standing up and fighting for justice.

PTI’s Secretary General Jahangir Tareen asked how the ministers had knowledge about contents of the “sealed findings” of the commission about the NA-122 when the report was yet to be opened by the tribunal on Monday.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2015

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