ISLAMABAD: Leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N accused on Saturday the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf of hatching “another conspiracy” to derail democracy in the country.

Speaking at a news conference, Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry and MNA Daniyal Aziz said PTI chairman Imran Khan did not want to see the PML-N government complete its five-year term as he knew that his party would not be able to win the general elections in 2018.

Dr Chaudhry said the PTI knew that if the present government was allowed to complete its term there would be no loadshedding in the country and Pakistan would be on the road to progress and there would be no chance for Mr Khan to win the next elections. Therefore, he alleged, the PTI wanted to send the present government packing before the next elections.

Mr Aziz said that previously the PTI had staged a protest sit-in against alleged rigging in the 2013 elections. However, he said, all its charges about rigging in the elections proved wrong.

“Once again, they are preparing a conspiracy against democracy and the country’s economic development, this time on another issue,” he said in his apparent reference to the PTI’s tough stance on the Panama Papers leaks.

The PML-N leaders also accused the PTI leadership of its failure to curb corruption in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where their party had been ruling for the past three years.

Mr Aziz asked the PTI chief to give details of corruption cases that had not been probed in KP due to political reasons.

He said Mohammad Afzal Khan, one of the characters of the 2014 protest sit-in and former additional secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan, had apologised to ECP members for wrongly accusing them of committing rigging in the 2013 elections.

He asked Mr Khan to also tender a public apology for levelling false allegations of rigging in the elections.

However, Afzal Khan has insisted that he has not withdrawn the allegation of massive rigging in the 2013 elections and he stood by what he had stated during a talk show in August 2014.

“My patch-up with retired Justice Riaz Kiani, aged 79, does not mean giving a clean chit to the 2013 polls,” he said in a video message that kept on circulating on social media on Saturday.

He said former chief election commissioner retired Justice Fakharuddin G. Ebrahim and the four outgoing ECP members were responsible for the rigging and called for investigations into the matter.

Afzal Khan, who was directly involved in preparations for and conduct of the 2013 polls, had alleged in August 2014 that the polls were ‘massively rigged’ and had pointed the finger squarely at former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and retired Justice Riaz Ahmed Kiani, the then ECP member from Punjab.

Mr Khan was the additional secretary at the ECP from 2012 until his retirement just after the elections in May 2013.

He had alleged that the chief justice had interfered in the ECP’s mandate by appointing returning officers, but managed to cover up his wrongdoings by influencing retired Justice Ebrahim.

His allegations had instantly been rebuffed by retired Justice Riaz Kiani who said Afzal Khan was disgruntled because he had been refused an extension of service, and was making these ‘outlandish’ claims to get back at him for that.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2016