PESHAWAR: Pakistan People’s party has rejected the results of May 30 local government elections and threatened to launch a series of protest sit-ins against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and its government in the province.

Addressing a press conference at the residence of former federal minister Arbab Alamgir here on Tuesday, PPP provincial president Khanzada Khan and former provincial president of PPP women wing Asma Alamgir urged other political parties to join hands against the provincial government for rigging the polls.

They asked Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to admit his failure and step down.

PPP leaders Arbab Alamgir, Zulfiqar Afghani and Malik Tehmash were also present on the occasion.

They said that PPP would not accept Imran Khan’s offer of re-election in presence of his provincial government as it (government) had lost confidence of all the political parties for rigging the elections.

The PPP leaders said that 13 people were killed in the ‘rigged’ elections. They appealed to Supreme Court of Pakistan to take suo moto notice of the matter to decide as to who was responsible for the bloodshed.

If cases could be registered against Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for the Model Town incident then why not Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak should be held responsible for the loss of lives, they questioned.

Ms Alamgir said that the elections took place in the shadow of hooliganism and her party rejected the results because women were subjected to violence for no fault of theirs.

Rejects Imran’s offer of re-election, asks CM to step down

The rigging, she said, was carried out by those who always made tall claims about bringing change in the fate of people. The people and media witnessed that women were treated badly during the elections and their ballot papers were snatched and they were forced out of the polling stations, she added.

Ms Alamgir said that chief minister’s silence over those issues was a mystery for the people as he was supposed to answer those questions. “We cannot call it election but it was selection,” she said and added that following the complaints the provincial government needed to stop misuse of its powers but it still continued to pressurise the returning officers to change results as per the wishes of the rulers.

Ms Asma claimed that provincial ministers were caught red-handed carrying away ballot boxes from the polling stations and it was ample proof of rigging and misuse of powers.

Regarding the PPP policy about the 2013 elections, she said that at that time the results were accepted to save democracy in the country but now the party would raise voice against the injustices and violation of rights of people.

The PPP leader said that billions of rupees were spent on the ‘fake’ elections just to fool the masses. She said that Imran Khan was joking with the entire nation and got a habit of staging sit-ins but that time the rest of parties would launch a ‘sit-in campaign’ against him in Peshawar.

Regarding Imran Khan’s offer to hold re-elections in the province, Ms Alamgir said that her party would not accept re-elections under the present provincial setup rather the whole system should be changed instead of befooling people.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2015

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