ISLAMABAD: On an otherwise lean newsy day, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan warmed up the capital on Sunday with allegations that the federal government had planned “blatant pre-poll rigging in Gilgit-Baltistan”.

Addressing a press conference at PTI’s central secretariat, he also criticised the role of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board for the team’s dismal performance in the World Cup.

Mr Khan listed the measures which he alleged the government had taken to secure electoral win in GB.

“Handpick appointments of the GB governor, caretaker chief minister and election commissioner make it obvious how the ruling PML-N intends to engineer the election results in the region,” he said.

Minister for Kashmir Affairs and GB Chaudhry Mohammad Birjees Tahir was appointed GB governor last week, Sher Jahan Mir chief minister in December last year and retired judge Syed Tahir Ali Shah election commissioner in November. The elections are due in May.

The PTI chief said that choosing an incumbent federal minister who hailed from Punjab as governor of GB was a clear violation of Article 101 (ii) of the Constitution.

The article says: “A person shall not be appointed a Governor unless he is qualified to be elected as member of the National Assembly and is not less than 35 years of age and is a registered voter and resident of the province concerned.”

Presenting what he claimed to be documentary evidence, Mr Khan said the funniest part of the appointments was that of the caretaker chief minister who’s an employee of Karakoram Bank and had applied for leave to the GB chief secretary to assume his temporary assignment. He alleged that the PML-N government had picked a worker of the party to head the region’s election commission.

The PTI has decided to challenge the appointments in the Supreme Court and if its concerns are not addressed, “I will personally go to GB to lead protest demonstrations”, he warned.

The PTI chief criticised the role of former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Punjab caretaker chief minister Najam Sethi for their alleged role in the May 2013 general elections and said that this time his party would not allow anyone to steal the people’s mandate come what may.

“I am going to GB in April to lead people for their rights to vote and decide their own destiny,” he said.

CRICKET TEAM DEBACLE: Although Mr Khan had never been short of ammunition to target Najam Sethi, former chairman of the PCB, the national team’s more than depressing outings proved to be a lethal addition to his armoury which he used against Mr Sethi.

Because of his ‘role’ in the last general elections, the PTI chief alleged, Mr Sethi had been generously given the post of PCB chairman by the ruling PML-N. “As a result, like other government departments where the prime minister has accommodated his dear and near ones, the cricket board has also been ruined, which we are seeing in the form of the team’s poor performance in the World Cup.”

He accused Mr Sethi of continuing to play a lead role in PCB affairs and said that whenever there was a violation of the rule of merit the results would be what the national team was producing these days.

SENATE ELECTIONS: Mr Khan urged all political parties to join hands and demand open balloting, instead of secret, to curb ‘horse trading’ in the Senate elections scheduled for March 5.

“Since everybody knows the amount of money being offered to provincial lawmakers, maligning the dignity of the upper house of parliament, one tends to ask what’s wrong in changing its election process. I’m even for direct elections of senators,” he said.

Answering a question, Mr Khan said he himself had been approached with a donation of Rs150 million for Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Peshawar in return of a Senate ticket, and one could imagine the kind of offers MPAs would be receiving to sell their votes.

“One of the PTI MPAs has proposed the name of a candidate other than of party’s choice. I have asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly speaker to take disciplinary action against him.”

Mr Khan criticised the PML-N leadership for awarding tickets outside the provinces concerned and said: “Within the PTI, I also faced similar pressure but we restricted party tickets to KP because it is the right of the provincial assembly to send its representatives to the Senate from within the province.”

The PML-N has awarded Senate tickets also to its leaders from Sindh who will contest the elections from Punjab.

In reply to a question, Mr Khan said his party and the government were yet to reach an agreement on the formation of a judicial commission to investigate the allegations of rigging in the 2013 general elections.

Earlier, Mr Khan oversaw the joining of PTI by a number of politicians of Azad Kashmir at the residence of Barrister Sultan Mehmood. The former AJK prime minister and the PTI chief welcomed the new entrants and vowed to bring about a genuine change in Kashmir.

Published in Dawn February 23rd , 2015

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