ISLAMABAD: The government has challenged the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to debate the poll-rigging allegations it has levelled against the ruling party, on the floor of the house.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz threw down the gauntlet at a press conference, addressed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed and Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rehman on Wednesday.

The ministers asked the PTI to raise the allegations, one by one, in parliament so the government could respond to them, point by point.

Ministers unveil report refuting allegations against ruling party

They jeered at the PTI’s claims regarding the recently publicised post-election review report, saying that none of the allegations levelled by the PTI had been endorsed by the report.

Mr Dar called upon protesters to end the sit-in, which he said was causing monumental economic losses to the country. Asked why marathon rounds of talks with both the protesting parties had failed, he said that nearly all the PTI’s demands had been accepted, but yet the two sides were no closer to an agreement.

The minister said this might be because of their intentions, stubbornness or due to the fact that they had unwittingly become part of an international conspiracy.

Mr Dar, who also heads the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, indicated that the committee’s next meeting would be open to the media. He said the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) would respond to the allegations levelled against it on legal and factual bases.

He asserted that isolated cases of irregularities were common in elections held around the world, but the law provided a mechanism to address such complaints.

In addition, the ministerial panel also unveiled their own report against the PTI, much as the protesting party had done days before its march on the capital.

The white paper, entitled ‘Truth behind PTI’s rigging allegations’, was prepared by the PML-N’s election cell and contains point-wise refutations of all the concerns raised by the protesting party.

Talking about the charges of mass rigging in Punjab, the report points out that the PTI left 31 National Assembly seats uncontested and won only 27 seats out of a total 272.

Only 30 losing candidates from the PTI filed election petitions, a mere 11 per cent of the total number of constituencies, of which only 19 were from Punjab.

The report castigates Imran Khan for his demand of reopening four constituencies as a test case, saying that it was purely the PTI chief’s “ignorance of the law” that makes him insist that the government should interfere in the existing mechanism for resolution of election disputes.

The report also clarifies that each vote cast, if not challenged as per the prescribed procedure, was legally valid regardless of whether or not the thumb impression on it could be matched fully for the purpose of authentication with the Nadra database.

It notes that there is no provision in the law that states that an unreadable thumb impression renders a vote bogus or fake.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2014